Citizen X

About

Citizen X started life as an unreleased side-scrolling action title for the Sega CD from Digital Pictures. The team built it around full motion video cutscenes that played between gameplay segments. Players controlled a character moving through a scrolling world while interacting with these video sequences to progress. Although the project never saw an official launch in February 1993, a nearly complete version survived and found its way into collectors' hands years later. A distributor known as Good Deal Games released this prototype commercially in 2002 after tracking it down. What makes this title stand out is simply that it exists at all given the cancellation. Most games from that era with unfinished prototypes vanish without a trace, but Citizen X got a second life through underground distribution. The visual style relies heavily on live action footage rather than traditional animation or pixel art sprites. Fans of obscure gaming history often seek it out just to see what Digital Pictures aimed for before pulling the plug. It remains a rare artifact from the early days of FMV games that never quite made the cut.