Canceled Bonk Game Footage Surfaces

The TurboGrafx-16 console was something of an anomaly. Released in the US in August of 1989 by NEC and Hudson Soft, the 16-bit system was a more powerful console than its contemporaries, the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, but failed to reach a large American audience due to its high price point and lack of software support.

Despite its short retail life, the platform managed to launch a couple of memorable titles, most notably Bonk’s Adventure, featuring the mascot of Hudson Soft. Bonk outlived the TurboGrafx-16, starring in over a dozen games on the SNES and mobile platforms, but a planned 2011 console return for the powerful cave-kid never materialized, leaving the franchise in limbo. Today, CVG posted footage from Bonk: Brink of Extinction, showing just how far the cancelled project had progressed.

Bonk: Brink of Extinction was set to be the sixth entry in the Bonk series, and would have featured online co-op gameplay, but when Konami purchased Hudson in 2012, they dissolved the company and ceased production on all their existing projects.

Gameplay footage of the in-development title has surfaced on YouTube. Based on the footage, it appears that the game would have allowed Bonk to don different headgear to give himself special abilities. It is not known where or how the poster managed to obtain the footage, but it is believed to be legitimate.