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Activision Designer Reveals Pitch for Alita Game from 2005
posted on by Kim Morrissy
Activision game designer Casey Holtz told Kotaku on Thursday about a pitch he had made for a Battle Angel Alita game in 2005, which was ultimately rejected. The game was intended to be a tie-in for a live-action film by James Cameron, which the film maker described as his "next feature film" in 2004. The film's production was delayed, and the game's pitch was rejected altogether.
Holtz, who says he had only recently entered the games industry at the time, submitted the one-page pitch with art (shown top-right) by Anthony Hon, an illustrator friend who worked at Activision at the time. Holtz anticipated that the game would come out for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 (called the "Xbox 2" in the pitch, due to the fact that the console had not been named at the time).
The pitch made numerous references to the Battle Angel Alita manga and attempted to incorporate aspects of Alita's characterization into the gameplay. For example, Holtz wrote that "Alita's body is built of metal and wires, giving her the ability to continue fighting with missing arms and legs." Holtz also wrote about a "Sure Foot System" which would allow the player to navigate narrow ledges and beams.
Although Holtz's pitch was turned down, he said that another studio ended up getting the license for an Alita tie-in game, although no game ended up being released. Now that the live-action film has finally debuted in 2019, Holtz said that he would love to see another developer take on Alita. “If it ever happens, I hope it gets the budget it deserves to really let people experience her world and everything Alita can do!”
In 1998, the manga was adapted into a Japanese PlayStation 1 game titled GUNNM: Martian Memory. The game was a retelling of the manga's story, featuring additional story elements from the manga creator Yukito Kishiro.
Source: Kotaku (Gita Jackson)
