Irrational's Cancelled Dungeon Duel Revealed

A new blog post on the Irrational Games website introduces us to Dungeon Duel, an RPG/RTS crossbreed that the talented team behind System Shock 2, Freedom Force, and BioShock was working on back in 2002. It sounds like lack of publisher support forced them to cancel the project, but there's some fantasy concept art within the blog post and a detailed PDF on offer to help us imagine what might have been:
Dungeon Duel is designed to appeal to two core audiences: strategy gamers and trading card players. Its attractive fantasy setting should also broaden its appeal to players interested in RPG and fantasy war gaming. The addition of online competitive play will extend the life of the product.

Key Features

'¢ An Exciting New Approach to RTS: Build specifically with consoles and their controllers in mind, with an easy to use interface and gentle learning curve.

'¢ Spectacular Visuals: Exciting pre-canned battle sequences makes creatures come alive as dodge, duck, weave and slice their way through battles!

'¢ Ultra Unlock: Take points earned within the game and use them to unlock new powerful units, items and spells. Purchase and download content online!

'¢ Combine cards: Combine creature, item and spell cards to create entirely new ones. Every card is valuable, both for what it can do. and what it can eventually become!

'¢ Trading Systems: Take your memory card over to your friend's house to trade for the cards you want, or take your console online and trade with people all around the world!

'¢ Multiple Game Modes: Two campaigns, multiple skirmish modes and random dungeon generation means that the adventure never ends!

'¢ Online Component: Take your console online and battle and trade with opponents from all over the world. View your stats on the games ladder system and download new content!