Taxi Driver (lost builds of unreleased PlayStation 2/Xbox sequel to 1976 film of the same name; 2005)

Mock-up of the PlayStation 2 version's box art.

Status: Lost

Taxi Driver is a 1976 neo-noir psychological drama thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese. The film was released to widespread critical acclaim and financial success and is widely considered one of the best films of all time. Riding off the film's reputation and the success of other video game adaptations of classic movies at the time, Majesco planned to release a sequel to the film in the Spring of 2006 for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.^[1] However, the game was quietly canceled in 2005 despite being shown off at that year's E3.^[2]

Development History

Sometime in 2005, Majesco was looking for someone to develop a Grand Theft Auto-inspired video game adaption of the film Taxi Driver when they were approached by an up-and-coming developer known as Papaya Studio. Papaya showed Majesco an early build of their currently in-development game Outlaw Taxi which seemingly impressed Majesco enough to have Papaya set to work converting Outlaw Taxi into a Taxi Driver game after which Majesco successfully acquired the Taxi Driver film rights from Sony Pictures.^[2]^[3] After the deal was successfully signed with Sony, Majesco was able to get Robert De Niro to reprise his role as the film & game's main character, Travis Bickle, via limited voice-over.^[2] The game was finally announced in the lead up to E3 2005 with the announcement receiving a largely negative reaction from the press as most outlets felt it was inappropriate to "gamify" such a dark and complex film.^[3]^[4] Although once they were able to get hands-on with the game at that year's E3 they seemed to be more positive with GameSpot's Greg Mueller saying "It looks like developer Papaya Studio has so far done a good job of capturing the gritty, violent tone of the film."^[5] Despite the overall optimism from the team at Papaya and the press, mounting pressure from the film's director, Martin Scorsese, and the film's writer, Paul Schrader, as well as Majesco's financial issues led to the game's abrupt cancellation later that year.^[2]^[6] The pressure from Scorsese might have been due to have developing his own sequel to the film around the same time which also never saw the light of day.^[7] Papaya would end up suing Majesco for breach of contract due to the game's sudden cancellation with Papaya winning the suite in 2007 which awarded Papaya a sum of money and the rights to all of the game's assets.^[2]

Plot

While a lot is known about the plot from developer notes there are still plenty of holes that are likely not present in later builds of the game. The first mission would taken place during one of the film's final sequences where protagonist Travis Bickle goes on a violent and bloody rampage in order to rescue child prostitute Iris Steensma from her pimps.^[3] The second mission would then have a time skip to two months after the film where Travis would be driving to the apartment of Betsy, a woman with whom Travis tried to have a romantic relationship within the film, for a date. Much to Travis' dismay, he sees Betsy being kidnapped resulting in Travis chasing them across the rooftops of New York to an ice factory. Travis is able to kill the kidnappers in the ice factory but not before they are able to kill Betsy.^[3] The third mission would follow this up by having Travis investigate Betsy's place of work, the campaign office of Senator and presidential candidate Charles Palantine. Travis would find some goons trashing the place looking for a set of special papers after which Travis would follow the thugs to another location. The second location was originally a warehouse but was changed to a sewer later on in development. Sometime during this mission, Travis would meet game original characters Frank Danton, a shady mob boss who would try and recruit Travis, and Constance, a prostitute who works for Danton. It's revealed at some point later in the game that Danton is working with Palantine to help rig the election by releasing scandalous pictures of his opponent taken by Constance and one of Danton's men, Carl.^[3] The fourth mission would see Travis selling an unknown item at a pawn shop after which he chases someone to a junkyard for an unknown reason. After making his way to the junkyard Travis would find that the person he was chasing has found themselves in control of the junkyard's crane, forcing Travis to shootout the crane's engine to draw them out so he can kill them.^[3] Some point after the fourth mission, Travis is dropping Constance off at a hotel when he spots Carl who Travis presumably meets at an unknown point earlier in the game as he gives chase. Carl leads Travis into an ambush but Travis is able to successfully fend off Carl and his men resulting in their deaths. After the shootout, Travis finds the camera that took the blackmail photos at the scene and he takes it to "Easy" Andy, an illegal gun salesman who Travis bought guns from in the film, to develop the photos. After seeing the photos, Travis starts to figure out what's going on but he still doesn't know how Betsy was involved so he tries to set up another meeting with Danton but he's stopped by a woman named Bittersweet who works for Danton. This results in Travis getting in a fight with her men which ultimately leads to their deaths. Sometime around this point in the game mission five, which is a shootout at a nightclub, would have taken place.^[3] Sometime afterward Travis calls up "Easy" Andy to get the pictures that were on the camera and they decide to meet at a warehouse which turns out to be a trap, with "Easy" Andy stating that Danton is a big customer of his. Travis would then shoot his way out of the warehouse and face off against an assassin named Tenn. While Travis is unsuccessful in killing Tenn he is to escape and goes to try and talk to Constance again but is overpowered by her pimp, Ray Ray. At this point, Travis is starting to suspect that Danton had something to do with Betsy's murder, and with no one else to go to Travis talks to The Wizard, one of his coworkers from the taxi depot, for advice.^[3] It's unknown what was actually said between the two of them but it would lead us into mission six which would take place in an adult theater which is owned by one of Danton's men. Travis would then head back to the pawn shop from mission four where he would spot one of Betsy's items for sale leading him to conclude that Tenn was behind her murder. After this Travis gets in a fight with the pawn shop's owner ultimately killing him.^[3] Then in mission seven Travis would head back to the taxi depot to talk to The Wizard again only to find that he's been murdered by Tenn. Travis is ambushed but he's able to escape into the subway after which he finds out that Tenn is going to kill Constance so Travis heads back to the brothel to save her life. At the brothel, he ends up killing Ray Ray and Tenn and gives Constance money to leave town. This presumably would have been mission eight with mission nine being a shootout in a cemetery although not much is known besides that.^[3] The final mission would have been a Travis facing of against "Easy" Andy, Danton, & Palantine. While Travis is able to kill all of them he gets pretty shot up in the process. The game would with Travis bleeding out in a gutter with a smile on his face as Constance walks by visibly high with a man on her arm.^[3]

Gameplay

The game would have been an open-world third-person shooter heavily influenced by the games in the Grand Theft Auto series that was released after Grand Theft Auto III. After the game's second mission, you would be able to freely roam around lower Manhattan in between missions where you could pick up passengers in Travis' cab and collect fares.^[5] Each passenger the player would pick up would have a unique mission for Travis to complete such as one described by Hilary Goldstein for IGN, "I picked up a woman who wanted to be taken to an office building. Her goal, unbeknownst to me, was to shoot up her former employers. Had I made it to the office, she would have hopped out with gun in hand. I could then chase after and kill her to stop her from the violence. However, I kicked her out of the cab early (purely by accident). She shot up the cab in retaliation, which is actually some pretty cool AI scripting."^[4] Although according to developer notes these often started to get repetitive due to hardware and memory limitations. The player could spend the money they'd earn from these fares to participate in various side activities around the open world, including a shooting gallery and arcade. Unlike the Grand Theft Auto series the player would be unable to hijack random vehicles and would be required to use Travis' cab for vehicular transportation.^[3] Now if the player were to harm innocent civilians along Travis' crusade his sanity would decrease eventually leading him to blackout and respawn at the last checkpoint. This would be this game's substitute for GTA's Wanted Level and would be represented by the screen becoming more red and blurry after each innocent kill.^[4]^[5] When outside of his taxi the player would be able to use a variety of guns including the Colt 25, .44 Magnum, Mac 10, Shotgun, and M-16.^[1] Depending on what gun he's holding Travis would move at different speeds.^[5] Travis could also duel wield pistols and SMGs.^[1] There was also a basic cover system.^[3] After weakening an enemy the player could perform brutal finishing moves via a series of button combinations^[2] which would build up a "rage meter" but it is unknown would the "rage meter" would have done.^[3]

Availability

Despite Papaya Studio gaining the rights to all of the games after winning their lawsuit against Majesco in 2007, the studio shut down in 2013^[2] and with this being an unfinished game based on a licensed property its very unlikely that this game will ever be officially released.