Scarface is still considered one of the great movies of its era, a masterful blend of over-the-top action and emotional storytelling capped off by one of Al Pacino's best performances. Perhaps unusually for games of the period, 2006's Scarface: The World Is Yours was an excellent video game tie-in that drew comparisons with the chaos of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, with many claiming the release brought the genre forward and erased some of the issues with Rockstar's most successful game up until that point.

It stood to reason then that a sequel would surely be in the works, particularly after the first game managed to ship two million units. Unfortunately, expectant fans only had protracted periods of silence and the occasional hint from the developer to go off of before all talk of a follow-up disappeared entirely. Almost 16 years later, details have emerged confirming that there had in fact been a sequel on the way, and it had aspired to take things to a whole new level.

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Scarface Goes to Vegas

Scarface Empire Exploring Vegas.v1 (1)

Thanks to a very belated leak on Twitter, several details and screenshots, as well as alpha gameplay footage, have given mafia and crime game fans a good idea of what they missed out on back in the mid-2000s. With the first game picking up at the exact moment where the movie leaves off (where, in this case, Tony Montana manages to escape), it seemed only logical that the sequel would take one of the most famous gangsters in fiction to their spiritual home.

With several screenshots of brightly lit casinos up and down the strip, the unreleased sequel captured the vibe and direction of the original movie while taking it to extravagant new heights. The appearance of an Elvis Presley lookalike furthers the glitz and glamour that the city is so famous for. The gameplay footage also reveals a significant new feature in the impressive revive system, which triggers after Tony receives a certain amount of damage. Although the prototype is not fully explained, it looks as though he would either kill or be killed depending on whether specific parameters are hit in a short space of time (most likely button mashing).

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Scarface Empire Firing a gun

The gameplay footage also showed off some features that were quite ahead of their time, including Turf Wars, a point-capturing mini-game that presumably would have allowed access to extra resources and missions if completed successfully. The footage also includes law enforcement and driving demos that, while reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto once again, look hugely impressive for what was essentially pre-alpha gameplay.

So, why was the game canceled with all of that going for it? Well, the information at hand is not very clear on that matter, but it may well be that the rights to publish it had something to do with it. In 2008, the property was transferred over to Activision Blizzard, and it was from here that news of a potential sequel went quiet. Although the rights eventually reverted to Universal Pictures, who had held them initially, it was not enough to resurrect this potential gem from its proverbial doldrums.

Whatever happened to the Scarface sequel behind the scenes, Radical Entertainment's track record suggests that it could have been a game for the ages. With the first game blazing such a strong early path for itself, the greater technology available at the time of the sequel's conception led to a strong early showing in the game's alpha stage. Unfortunately, as is the case with so many projects, this was as far as it got.