Black & White 2

Black & White 2
Developer: Lionhead Studios Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: Windows Released internationally: October 3, 2005 This game has unused areas. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused objects. This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused music. This game has unused text. This game has a prerelease article

To do: Unused wonders' textures are still in the game files. Unused models. Unused music, as well as naming oddities with music corresponding to wonder chants being titled after different tribes. Add exact bits of unused text related to miracles, creature abilities, buildings, et cetera rather than paraphrasing. Restructure the article entirely with headers properly corresponding to unused graphics and unused text rather than each specific tidbit of unused content, create subpages if needed. The page is a mess the way it is currently, all around the place. Check out for more unused lands. A LOT of interviews, devlogs and the artstation for prerelease and development articles.

Black & White 2 is a sequel for the first Black & White, a God game where you're not really much of a God anymore and it rather starts feeling like a normal wargame. It was met with mixed reactions from fans, but what we all can't deny is that it had some god-tier graphics for its age and even now looks decent, also, the game has a massive amount of cut content, including miracles, dialogue, levels, and parts of the plot of the story.

Wonders and epic miracles

Stop time

Self-explanatory enough, this is one of the miracles that presumably had been planned for very long and cut late, having its own bit of concept art.

Verdant

There is a miracle of the same name in the Battle of the Gods expansion, that turns enemies into animals. It is probable this would have been an epic version of that miracle. Alongside Stop time, it is another epic miracle that has concept art tied to its wonder.

WOMD/Doomsday

To do: Add the unused graphics!

Weapon of mass destruction, of unknown effect. Has its own bit of unused graphics and, most curiously, its own music, and yet there's seemingly no concept art tied to it.

There are also references to "Doomsday", which is most likely the same as WOMD, with the only argument against being the fact developers mentioned exactly 8 epic miracles (4 are present and other 4, if we count Doomsday and WOMD as separate ones, are cut).

Of note that in the building text files, there is no reference to "Doomsday" and there is only WOMD Wonder. At the same time, in GameBalanceMiracle.txt there is a reference to DOOMSDAY_EPIC but not to WOMD. This lends credence to the idea that Doomsday is simply the ability of the WOMD wonder.

Lands

Land 5

Second Norse land, bombarded with meteors. Norse have only a single land in the final game, which looks strange compared to Japanese and Aztecs.

Land 10

Aztecs' sacrificial land. It is still mentioned in dialogs, so it's odd we don't get to see it.

Miracles

WOMD

Everything what is left of WOMD epic miracle in-game.

Decay

Unknown miracle, presumably related to the decay of time.

Wind

Mentioned in GameBalanceArtefact.txt ; unbuyable. Developer interviews do mention wind miracle, and there is a chance it might have been reworked or evolved into shield miracle.

Rain

Mentioned in GameBalanceArtefact.txt ; unbuyable.

Expansion miracles

Lava, Life and Death miracles are mentioned in the base game text-based unlock tables, but are unbuyable. They were to reappear later, in the expansion Battle of the Gods.

Creature Miracles

Creature miracles are noted by the "everyday" name in the text files.

Here we can see highlighted the extra intended Creature "spells" in GameBalanceMiracles.txt:

* HEAL_EVERYDAY
* '''INVISIBILTY_EVERYDAY'''
* '''SHIELD_EVERYDAY'''
* '''FLAMETHROWER_EVERYDAY'''
* WATER_JET_EVERYDAY
* LIGHTNING_EVERYDAY
* FIRE_BOMB_EVERYDAY
* '''FREEZE_BOMB_EVERYDAY'''
* '''DECAY_BOMB_EVERYDAY''' 

As is evident from this list, of the intended nine castable creature miracles, only four made it into the final game.

Music

A music track called WOMD. Most likely was used for the epic miracle of the same name.

Multiplayer

To do: Unused text, code, graphics... Whatever related to multiplayer!

Perhaps the most notorious missing feature, this would have made an appearance in Battle of the Gods. While we do get an enemy God AI there (unlike in the original game), you still can't battle other players.

More aligned building models and textures

To do: Graphics, models.

More buildings were intended to have Evil or Good versions besides the neutral ones, while such variations are unused in the game in several cases. Some textures remain in the game files. Sometimes it is only a texture, sometimes, it would have used a different model file.

In the final game, many buildings are unaffected by alignment.

Unimplemented buildings

"Balance" game files (such as GameBalanceBuilding.txt) make reference to several buildings which don't appear in the final game.

Amongst these, it is notable to mention a "tier system" for towns, with "halls" or "centres" for different grades of development. These might have existed instead of the ultimate "city center" feature. The notes seem to indicate they would have served as prerequisites for a tier system, of buildings or other features.

Creature abilities

A fourth, unused tier for creature abilities is listed in the costs file (GameBalanceArtefact.txt). It exists for all Builder, Gatherer, Soldier and Entertainer paths. Presumably, these would have made your creature even more powerful in its respective areas of expertise. It might be that the developers didn't have either the time or ideas to make the creature more efficient in each of these areas.