It was in pre-production at R London by a very small team in 2011 while the rest were assisting R North on GTA V.
It was in active dev starting from 2013 to late 2016.
You were playing as an airplane crash survivor stranded in a remote island (sounds familiar?). The main objective was to escape and survive with as many survivors as you can, it was possible to complete the game with you being the only survivor.
The island was open into hub areas, not exactly open world but plenty to explore. There were no vehicles.
It had survival mechanics and you could bring supplies and medicine to the camp for the rest of the survivors (again, it does sound pretty familiar too).
You were going to fight against a bunch of people on the island, the big twist was that they were guinea pigs for the Pickman Bridge from M2. Experiments happening on the island led by Dr Whyte. Only this time, they were successful in having two personalities, without knowing that both existed in the same body.
However, the implanted personality was still based on Leo, as it was the only personality with much of the important work already done by Pickman. They decided to do all this on a remote island so in case it fails, it won't be a repeat of M2.
Every enemy personality of the game could literally turn into Leo at any moment. They were some really cool unpredictable moments with the A.I., one minute they would turn into Leo, the next they were back to normal.
For example, one moment you are chased by vicious killer, and out of nowhere they are cowering in a corner and try to run away from you begging for their lives. It was dynamic and it could happen at any random moment.
Some "enemies" were completely innocent who went into the project as they were desperate for money. So if you decide to kill someone, there is a high chance you are killing an innocent person under the the influence of the Pickman Bridge. Something like Danny from M2. You were supposed to find that out near the end of the game.
Guns and ammo are extremely rare and more emphasis was put into stealth and close combat.
Avoiding killing people was an option with a few non-lethal ways or avoiding them altogether.
The game was intended to never force a killing on you. It was your call.
The main protagonist (Casey Rivera) was an average joe. He has zero combat training and the early kills/knockouts are very messy and sloppy. He becomes very used to the killing/knocking out and this progression was dynamic. The more you use a certain weapon, the more accustomed he becomes with it. And similar weapons to the one he was used to, would also become easier to use, regardless if they were lethal or not.
The second big twist was tied into the killings. The more people Casey kills, the crazier he would get.
EVERYTHING would reflect that. From the U.I., to the animations, dialogue even the way the story progresses.
You could "unlock" the ability to kill you own survivors if you wanted.
All of that was a hidden insanity mechanic, it was never explained to the player.
In a way, you were turning into a cold killer, without the need of an implant like the Pickman Project.
The Housers put on a mandate that a third Manhunt moved away from the over the top graphic violence and had an emphasis on psychological horror elements. While it was still violent, it was nothing like the previous games.
It wasn't about the executions anymore, it was about the consequences of an execution.
It wasn't going to be called Manhunt 3, just Manhunt. But the story was a picking up after M2.
It would be a reboot in gameplay and mechanics.
Multiplayer design started in 2015 because of GTA Online. I know jack-shit about it, doubt it went very far.
While it was deep in development, it was put in hold for a lot of reasons.
One was Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider. They were afraid of the obvious comparisons it would draw, but they had faith that the mechanics, horror elements, and the maturity of the story would make it stand on its own.
The other was RDR 2. It needed resources from of all the studios and many other projects were put on hold because of it.
And mainly, it was Max Payne 3. MP3 flopped and they were "afraid" of the linearity of the new Manhunt.
They are very proud of what they done with this, I doubt that its is completely dead, but the last update I got for this one was back in 2016.
However, many assets were reused in RDR 2 and it helped immensely because it was stuck in development hell for long time.
Some survival crafting and camp mechanics were reworked into RDR.
Guarma was going to be a lot smaller. 85% of the island is reused from Manhunt.
Tropical Trees and foliage and some wildlife was taken directly from it.
At least one execution with a knife in a mission was taken from Manhunt.
And some music was taken from Manhunt.
Colin Stetson (Hereditary) was the composer and all the tracks from him for this game were taken directly from Manhunt, I know that one was slightly altered for RDR (where you clear a cave from some weird rednecks). This one is definitely his and you can tell it barely fits for a game like RDR.
I do believe its going to happen at some point, but a lot of things will be reworked.
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