Prototype, Beta, pre-release and cancelled games

[Ikagura]

I have always been fascinated by prototypes and previous builds of games before they get released, remember when Halo was a RTS? Remember the 3DO build of Metal Gear Solid? Remember how Super Man was meant to have a game on the Playstation that is light-years above that infamous N64 game? Remember Shenmue Saturn? Remember Half-Life²'s original build? Remember the Action RPG build of Dragon Quest IX? Remember Scalebound?

I want to make a thread focused on any unreleased content as well as cancelled video games and what they could've been.

 

[RageBurner]

You cited a lot of examples already, wow haha.
Seeing a beta or prototype always makes me think that in a different timeline, the game would have been finished, and maybe it would even have been good.

Sonic 2 was completely different in its initial design phase, and I would have loved to play that version. Not only does it involve the cut zones that are, for the most part, well known and documented, but it would also have involved time travel (something perhaps Sonic CD borrowed from), ultimately being a much larger game than we did get, perhaps akin in size to Sonic 3 + Knuckles.

 

[Cu-Neo]

It's always interesting that capcom almost released RE 1 on GBC. The rom is on the internet and it's fully playable (minus the final battle)

Another one would be Van Buren (the original fallout 3).

The plot of Van Buren revolved around an escaped prisoner who would explore the American Southwest while being pursued by robotic prison guards. The main antagonist was a mad scientist named Victor Presper, who planned on using the prisoner as an inadvertent vector to spread a deadly virus

 

[RageBurner]

For my money, this looks better than the blocky 3D that plagued the 5th generation of consoles.

 

[Ikagura]

Sonic 2 was completely different in its initial design phase, and I would have loved to play that version. Not only does it involve the cut zones that are, for the most part, well known and documented, but it would also have involved time travel (something perhaps Sonic CD borrowed from), ultimately being a much larger game than we did get, perhaps akin in size to Sonic 3 + Knuckles.

Maybe it was too ambitious for a sequel released merely a year after the first. I'm still glad with the final product but you're right. Even Sonic 3&K was too big to fit in one game.

Sonic Adventure had so much of the Saturn DNA before becoming the launch game for the Dreamcast

It's always interesting that capcom almost released RE 1 on GBC. The rom is on the internet and it's fully playable (minus the final battle) View attachment 3249
Another one would be Van Buren (the original fallout 3).View attachment 3250The plot of Van Buren revolved around an escaped prisoner who would explore the American Southwest while being pursued by robotic prison guards. The main antagonist was a mad scientist named Victor Presper, who planned on using the prisoner as an inadvertent vector to spread a deadly virus

RE1 on the DS was fine at least because 3D on the Color is a bit too ambitious (although I would've loved to see a GBA tech demo of RE).

Shame that Fallout 3 from Bethesda isn't what we wanted from Fallout at all.

At least New Vegas had the Van Buren DNA in it.

 

[RageBurner]

Maybe it was too ambitious for a sequel released merely a year after the first. I'm still glad with the final product but you're right. Even Sonic 3&K was too big to fit in one game.

Sonic Adventure had so much of the Saturn DNA before becoming the launch game for the Dreamcast
View attachment 3254

Considering how badly the Saturn needed a proper Sonic game, that would have been cool to see, and may even have helped turn the console's fortune, who knows.

 

[Ikagura]

Considering how badly the Saturn needed a proper Sonic game, that would have been cool to see, and may even have helped turn the console's fortune, who knows.

Nights couldn't deliver on the same level as Sonic yeah...


Super Smash Bros. Melee's beta is fascinating imo

Even more than the other games in the franchise.

And bless Valve for releasing the prototype demo videos

The only screenshot we had for two decades was only this

 

[Jvsouza11]

Nights couldn't deliver on the same level as Sonic yeah...


Super Smash Bros. Melee's beta is fascinating imo

Even more than the other games in the franchise.

And bless Valve for releasing the prototype demo videos

The only screenshot we had for two decades was only this View attachment 3255

GET YOUR FREE TVS!!!!!

 

[dropsmegamega]

Other than the already mentioned Van Buren which was basically my dream CRPG, and Heroes of Might and Magic V (the original project, before it was bought by ubisoft), Rayman 4 comes to mind:

Nintendo also had some games that became completely different things in the end, like Earthbound 64 and the cancelled gamecube Kirby.

 

[Gorse]

Rayman 4 comes to mind

The silver lining to this game's cancellation (I wanted it too) was that it eventually lead to Rayman Origins and Legends, which are two of the finest 2D platformers ever made. Ubisoft was right to separate the Rayman and Rabbids franchises entirely.

 

[dropsmegamega]

The silver lining to this game's cancellation (I wanted it too) was that it eventually lead to Rayman Origins and Legends, which are two of the finest 2D platformers ever made. Ubisoft was right to separate the Rayman and Rabbids franchises entirely.

These are fine and fun to play multiplayer and all, but I really really miss the 3D games. Here's hoping the rumors of a new one are true, but knowing modern ubi I just can't get my hopes up.

 

[OmegaKatanaXIII]

Speaking of canceled video games reminded me of a game called Final Fantasy Versus XIII. I first discovered it during lunch or visual arts class at my high school in 2007. After my first watch of the very first trailer I fell in love with the game despite being scrapped and being turned into final fantasy xv.

 

[Skeetos]

I love this topic. Not only Crash Twinsanity but the entire era that Traveller's Tales were working on Crash Bandicoot. They had so many crazy ideas for the series. I don't think anyone really tapped into the universe the way that they did. I really wish they would have ended up as the main devs. Maybe we would have more games in the franchise. Not to mention Traveller's Tales are some of the most creative game devs there are. Jon Burton is a programming legend. He's got a YouTube page called GameHut where he shows off a lot of stuff he worked on when he still worked for them. A couple betas of Wrath of Cortex and Twinsanity have videos there.

 

[Wimmer]

I always think about Metal Gear Rising’s original gameplay when game prototypes are brought up, I love the final game but this looks damn cool.

 

[Skeetos]

I always think about Metal Gear Rising’s original gameplay when game prototypes are brought up, I love the final game but this looks damn cool.

KojiPro got screwed so hard with this game. I love the final game as well but this would have been better for sure, also would have been the introduction to the Fox Engine.

 

[Ikagura]

Other than the already mentioned Van Buren which was basically my dream CRPG, and Heroes of Might and Magic V (the original project, before it was bought by ubisoft), Rayman 4 comes to mind:

Nintendo also had some games that became completely different things in the end, like Earthbound 64 and the cancelled gamecube Kirby.

Rayman 4 is my biggest regret (especially when Murfy referenced it in Rayman 3's beginning as a joke after you finished the tutorial level).

Some minigames from Rayman Raving Rabbids were directly taking assets and maps from Rayman 4's prototype (like the racing one).

I actually like the first RR spinoff but I still wished they could've continued the Rayman series next to it but it's yet another franchise that got overtaken by its spin-off sub-series (like Wario Ware with Wario Land and Spyro with Skylanders). They are literally like how Minions overtook Despicable Me...

At least the GBA version is still more or less Rayman 4 since the devs never focused on minigames for that (and like Hoodlum Havock GBA it's also quite close to Rayman 1).

Speaking of canceled video games reminded me of a game called Final Fantasy Versus XIII. I first discovered it during lunch or visual arts class at my high school in 2007. After my first watch of the very first trailer I fell in love with the game despite being scrapped and being turned into final fantasy xv.

FF XV was a multimedia mess honestly...

At least Verum Rex could be what it was meant to be from start.

I always think about Metal Gear Rising’s original gameplay when game prototypes are brought up, I love the final game but this looks damn cool.

As a massive fan of MGR I really wish Konami released the prototype.

I do love the trailer and how impressive it is for a 10+ years old (especially regarding the cutting mechanic) but I feel that they didn't have more ideas about what to do and I'm still glad that Platinum Games offered us a good beat'em all game so you still had a game beyond just cutting things.

Still wish Platinum could've made a spiritual successor without any tie to Konami nor Metal Gear so they could be more free about the story and ideas.

 

[Octopus]

It's always interesting that capcom almost released RE 1 on GBC. The rom is on the internet and it's fully playable (minus the final battle)

The Resident Evil series for some reason is full of topic relevant games, more than any other series I can name right now at least.
There's the unreleased (until semi recently) prototype of 2 called '1.5' that went through several revisions until being scrapped and restarted- it's almost unrecognizable from the final actually released 2. Leon's still in it, but the other character is a motorcycle racer named Elza Walker. Chief Irons was actually a good guy in it and Marvin survives the game- wild. Anyway, the prototype finally made it to the Internet in a pretty interesting story of fans being swindled by a private collector before finding it from someone else. I think it's on CDRomance actually, but you can't actually finish it last I checked as the game crashes at one specific door.
RE4 had it the most; there's the original idea from around '99 that eventually became DMC, then the famous 'hookman' build (called 3.5 usually) that actually had a sick looking gameplay reveal;

RE:0 was originally supposed to be on the N64 before getting delayed until the GameCube; allegedly there was some level of playable builds, but they've never been unearthed and it sounds like this early version was almost identical to the final game anyway.

 

[Ikagura]

New Super Mario Bros' first builds were much closer to Mario 64 DS (sharing the same engine after all).

And how it made me see how games can change from one year to the other.

The "lost" Wii build of Kid Icarus Uprising before we got the 3DS release

Better quality upload has been made by Valve for the 20th anniversary but I love the commentaries from that person

 

[Gorse]

New Super Mario Bros' first builds were much closer to Mario 64 DS (sharing the same engine after all).

I love this footage — NSMB’s original form looked way better than the series we actually got. You can really tell they were developing on from the Advance games, and I spy some influence from those early Yoshi DS games, too.

 

[Ikagura]

I love this footage — NSMB’s original form looked way better than the series we actually got. You can really tell they were developing on from the Advance games, and I spy some influence from those early Yoshi DS games, too.

I understand the Mario fans getting tired of the staleness of the NSMB formula (especially on the 3DS and Wii U while Wii was still a novelty for its 4 players gameplay and adding elements that were absent on the DS like Yoshis) but I'd still defend the first one on the DS for the original ideas and mixing 3D Mario elements after over a decade without any new original 2D Mario Bros games (I still like SMB Deluxe on the GBC and the Advance remakes of 2, 3, World and Yoshi's Island but outside of some elements and e-reader levels they weren't original).

I remember seeing a video listing the original gimmicks by Akfamilyhome which made me glad because people retroactively became harsh with the first because of U...

I do wish they kept more of that 64-esque elements but I feel that Miyamoto and other high staff at Nintendo asked them to make it more SMB-esque.

I haven't played that much of Yoshi's Island DS but this was basically the first real sequel to the SNES game as Yoshi's Story was basically its own thing?

PS: I don't get why Nintendo suddenly had a big nostalgia for SMB3 with the Tanuki suit returning in 3D Land and NSMB 2, perhaps because 3DS -> SMB 3.

PPS: I would've loved to see another 2D game that references both the Land duology and Donkey Kong '94 + Mario vs DK (GBA) as well as Mario Bros 2 USA's enemies and even plant pulling gimmick. Wonders already brought some magic from these games.

PPPS (yes, a third one): Speaking of Mario 64 the beta is fascinating

 

[Poltergeist]

I want to make a thread focused on any unreleased content as well as cancelled video games and what they could've been.

Please do, I didn't know anything about all of the games you've mentioned. It would be very interesting to read.

 

[Ikagura]

Please do, I didn't know anything about all of the games you've mentioned. It would be very interesting to read.

Well, you're in it as we're talking.

I'll add the 2006 trailer of Dragon Quest IX back when it was pitched as a multiplayer-focused action/adventure game before the fanbase complained so that they delayed the game and presented us with a proper turn based RPG

I still wouldn't have minded an action/RPG spin-off for Dragon Quest but at least Heroes and Builders offered us some of that.

 

[Octopus]

If we're talking about cancelled games that were almost playable before getting the axe, there is the one famous example that comes to mind; StarCraft: Ghost. It was announced in 2002 and didn't get officially cancelled until I think like 2014 or something. Apparently it was cancelled because Blizzard missed the PS2/OG Xbox release window and didn't want to have to adapt to the 360/PS3 era (I can't blame them for that one). Bizarre how they decided to not tell anyone it wasn't happening at all until 2014, but Blizzard rarely makes logical decisions really.

Anyway, there was actually a playable build that leaked about 4 years ago but I think was only playable on a modded Xbox; for whatever reason it wasn't able to emulated on Xemu. It's a shame, I probably would have loved it personally at least and it seemed like for its time it could have been a major milestone in the 3rd person shooter/stealth genre.

 

[OneKickMan]

 

[daratmp+wxqvs]

There was going to be a 3D version of Kirby's Dream Course for N64 called 'Kirby Bowl 64' there are a few short clips of it here:

I think it got turned into Kirby Air Ride.
Here's some more info on it : https://kirby.fandom.com/wiki/Kirby_Bowl_64

I really like both Kirbys Dream Course and Special Tee Shot so a 3D version seems cool to me.