Just Cause studio's canned dragon-riding fantasy romp AionGuard "would have been Crimson Desert", reckons former Avalanche creative head

Back in the late 2000s, Just Cause developers Avalanche ended up in a publishing pickle with a fantasy open-worlder they were working on. It was dubbed AionGuard, and ex-Avalanche chief creative officer Christofer Sundberg reckons that had it not ended up chucked on the cancellation bonfire, the game would've done a lot of the same things which've helped make Crimson Desert a hit all these years later.