Former THQ boss Danny Bilson has plans to revive Guillermo del Toro's Insane

Former THQ boss Danny Bilson has plans to revive the canceled Guillermo del Toro video game project Insane, he told VG247.

"I haven't heard that he's doing anything with it yet, although I do have an idea how to revive it, and I'm gonna speak to him soon," Bilson said.

Publisher THQ announced in 2012 its decision to cancel pre-production on the horror title made in development with the Hellboy director, returning all IP rights to the director at the time.

Insane was previously in development at Volition Inc., the studio responsible for developing THQ's Saints Row and Red Faction franchises. The survival horror title was announced at the Spike Video Game Awards in 2010 by del Toro. It was originally slated for a 2013 release, planned as a trilogy of games.

"As much as I can tell you about it is that it was an action adventure game with really great environments, story and characters, and it was period and very Lovecraftian," Bilson continued. "I don't wanna spoil it, in the hope that Guillermo wants to go further with it.

"It was really atmospheric, a great world. There were environments in that game that players have never been through before. It had a really interesting narrative, a really great character that the player inhabited in it.

"It was at Volition for at least a year towards the end there. The people who really worked on it were at Volition. There were probably — I don't remember exactly — about 35 people working on it in preproduction, doing some prototyping and working on some technology, things like that. They were very passionate about it at Volition."

By late 2012, del Toro himself stated he was in talks with developers over continuing production on the cancelled game, singling out Valve as an ideal candidate. One year later, the director confirmed he may have found a studio to develop Insane.

"We are in talks with a very, very big company. I can't say who, but it's one of the big ones. They really responded to the game, they responded to what we were trying," he said at the time.

"Some of the devices of the game I need to update, because now I've seen them in other games that just came out. That always happens. But the principle we're trying to do with the game is to make it a really immersive narrative experience. It's still a really challenging proposal."