After 27 years, a demo of the cancelled game Big Brother, a sequel to George Orwell’s 1984, has been made publicly available

The dystopian novel “1984” by English writer George Orwell could have received a sequel in video game format a quarter of a century ago, but something went wrong. However, 27 years later, gamers have had the opportunity to touch history.

Image source: MediaX

The project was called Big Brother and was developed by the now-closed American studio MediaX. The game was shown at E3 1998 and was planned for release in the fall of 1998 at a price of $30, but after several postponements it was quietly cancelled.

As a result, MediaX lost the license for 1984 and the Big Brother name, and the rights holder Newspeak was unable to find another publisher. The game had reached alpha at the time of the cancellation.

At the 1999 Golden Satellite Awards, Big Brother won the award for Best Interactive/Entertainment Product.

The game was considered lost for the last 27 years, but on March 1, 2025, user Shed Troll uploaded an alpha build of Big Brother from January 4, 1999 to the Internet Archive, which includes a limited demo and content from the full version.

Following the release, Shed Troll also posted a nine-minute video on YouTube showing a demo of Big Brother (see video below). Similar demos also appeared on the VKontakte social network.

Big Brother took place after the end of 1984. As Eric Blair (a reference to Orwell’s real name), players had to rescue his fiancée from the Thought Police and help a group of hackers take down Big Brother.

Big Brother was positioned as a first-person role-playing adventure combining elements of Riven and Quake. The game was designed with 12 levels (initially 60 were planned) of five hours each, progressive facial animations and puzzles.