NES · 1992 · North America · Unlicensed Original
Cheetahmen II was an unfinished sequel to the Cheetahmen game from Action 52, left unreleased after Active Enterprises collapsed. Manufactured cartridges were discovered in a warehouse in the early 2000s and sold to collectors, creating an unusual situation where an unreleased game entered the collector market.
Active Enterprises had ambitious plans to turn Cheetahmen into a multimedia franchise complete with cartoons and merchandise, but the company's financial collapse left the sequel incomplete and warehoused. When a large batch of cartridges was discovered years later, they were sold in lots to collectors, technically making Cheetahmen II one of the rarest commercially distributed NES games despite never having had an official release. The game is famously broken — certain levels are completely impassable due to programming errors — but fan communities have produced patched versions that correct the most egregious bugs. The Cheetahmen property has achieved ironic cult status far exceeding anything its creators intended.
Being an officially unreleased game that nonetheless entered collector markets through a genuine warehouse discovery.
The precise circumstances of the Cheetahmen II cartridge discovery have become somewhat legendary in retro gaming circles. A large quantity of finished but unshipped cartridges were found in a storage facility, and their owner chose to sell them to collectors rather than dispose of them. This created the paradoxical situation of a brand-new, never-released NES game entering the collector market decades after the fact.
Because the cartridges were genuine manufactured products rather than reproductions, they occupy an ambiguous space in collector authenticity discussions. They are simultaneously the most authentic possible version of the game and technically unauthorized releases that bypassed any normal distribution process.
The initial lots sold briskly to collectors who recognized the historical curiosity, and prices for the cartridges have remained elevated relative to most unlicensed NES titles.
The Cheetahmen II fan community, small but dedicated, undertook detailed reverse engineering of the game's code to identify and patch the bugs that prevented completion. These patches were released freely and demonstrated both the technical capability of retro gaming communities and the affection — however ironic — that existed for even deeply flawed gaming artifacts.
The broader Cheetahmen phenomenon, including both Action 52 and Cheetahmen II, has been extensively documented by retro gaming YouTubers and podcasters. The characters themselves — three cheetah brothers — have been the subject of fan art and even new fan-made games.
Active Enterprises' ambitious failure serves as a recurring case study in the consequences of releasing unfinished software at premium prices, a lesson that remains relevant as modern crowdfunded games occasionally repeat similar patterns.