Illusion Island Is Based On A Cancelled Disney Game From 2016
Disney Illusion Island is based on a canceled game from 2016 that was a reboot of one of Disney's biggest IPs with the same characters, gameplay, and art style.
Yesterday, Marvel and Disney held a gaming showcase at D23, revealing several new projects including Amy Hennig's untitled Marvel game with Captain America and Black Panther, a Tron visual novel, and Marvel's take on Pokemon Go. One of the biggest surprises of the night was Disney Illusion Island, a four-player platformer from the developers of 2020's Battletoads, complete with similar hand-drawn designs.
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As reported by IGN in an interview following the reveal, it turns out that Illusion Island is actually based on a canceled game from 2016 that was created from a deal between Disney and Dlala worth $3.5 million. For whatever reason, that game ended up being quietly canned after having never been officially revealed.
Disney VP of Disney, Pixar, and 20th Century Games Luigi Priore said in an interview with IGN, "Disney’s in a different place now. Is it exactly the same game? It’s not. Is it Dlala? Yes. Are they bringing their creativity to it? Yes. Is it the same characters? Yes. It didn’t work then, but the environment changed with Sean Shoptaw (Senior VP, Walt Disney Games) taking over, with us bringing in people like John Drake on the business development side…we already knew (Dlala CEO) AJ and the team at Dlala, and we knew they could do great work, so we wanted to start a project and work with them to create this new game.”
Seeing as how the original version of the project was never revealed, it's not clear exactly what went wrong to get it
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