The Cutting Room Floor:Content to expand/Prerelease Pages
This is a sub-page of The Cutting Room Floor:Content to expand.
Suggestions for prerelease pages to create, with links to info that should be documented.
Contents
General Resources
- Archive.org's game magazine collection - Massive archive of scanned gaming magazines (also check other collections/items not in collections)
- Archive.org's press kit collection - CD and DVD-ROMs full of prerelease materials
- Redump's press kit database - CD and DVD-ROMs full of prerelease materials
- RetroMags - Another archive of scanned gaming magazines
- The Arcade Flyer Museum
- Gaming Intelligence Agency - news and images
- 1, 2 - Geisen online magazine (check the linked pages)
- Noclip Game History archive - It has lots of VHS tapes of gaming stuff that were once lost to time.
- Noclip Documentaries Archive.org page - Has even more stuff like press kits.
- LavaCutContent - Has interesting obscure Pokémon info.
To Sort
- EGM Issue 13 (August 1990) has previews of some games that ultimately ended up being unreleased, including a version of Block Out that varies from the one dumped. Not sure if the same applies to shown version of War on Wheels.
- With the release of Rare Replay, Rare has been divulging plenty of information about early builds of its various games.
- The Sega Video Magazine tapes (which lasted from 1993-98) have a bunch of prerelease footage from various games.
- https://gamingreinvented.com/interview/lets-interview-father-of-chiptune-chip-tanaka/
- https://gamingreinvented.com/interview/lets-interview-the-voice-of-bowser-scott-burns/
- Interview with ChoroQ composer about their works on the games.
- [1] former Rockstar North employee shares developmental secrets.
Arcade
- Daytona USA
- Early screenshots can be found of the game, one of them with a title screen just calling the game "Daytona" (find the source/magazines with this info). There is also a tech demo.
- Dynamite Dux
- Flyer shows script changes during intro cutscene (albeit partly blocked off by advertising text).
- Enduro Racer
- Flyer shows the HUD in a different position in most screenshots of the game, having it on top-center like Space Harrier rather than the left like the final. The home computer versions were like the pre-release as well.
- Sonic the Fighters
- Very early screenshots of the game. The character select screenshot is from Fighting Vipers.
- X-Men: Children of the Atom
- The Japanese video X-Men: The History includes footage of a version of the game prior to v1.00 (941208).
Multiplatform Games
- Agents of Mayhem
- video detailing the game's rushed development, three cities were also planned along with a sequel.
- Anarchy Reigns
- The game started out as a sequel to Madworld.
- Jack Cayman's model from Madworld was used as a placeholder for some time.
- Bayonetta
- Tons of concept art, featuring various designs for Bayonetta and Jeanne.
- Several videos of prototype footage, all of which can be found here.
- The TGS 2008 trailer, which depicts the crumbling clock tower scene as being in modern times, and Bayonetta having a slightly different model (pure blue eyes instead of blueish-gray, different-looking Umbran Watch, etc.).
- BioShock
- Little Sister, Big Daddy, enemy, Big Sister, and Rapture concept art.
- Chicken Little
- Trailer and screenshots feature early HUD graphics and an apparent HUD graphic showing the entire body of the alien walker. Gamershell's website has all we need (except for the trailers).
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Faction concept arts (which include female versions of the characters) and early HUD designs. The HUD designs seem to reference cut features.
- Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
- Two prototype videos that feature the debugging tools mentioned in the main article.
- Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller
- Early 2001 interview mentioning a cut day/night feature, tentatively called Crazy Taxi Next. Confirms it was Xbox-only at that time of writing.
- DJ Hero 2
- According to a developer, was going to have a mashup of "Let's Get It Started" and "LoveGame".
- Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist
- The trailer contains some gameplay of areas which don't appear/are different in the final game.
- Duke Nukem Forever
- Way too much to list here, considering how long it spent in development hell. This could be a good starting point.
- A fair bit of info from the Duke Nukem Forever Museum as well, just make sure to find additional sources for some things mentioned.
- Equilinox
- There is a playlist of Devlogs on YouTube.
- Fire Emblem (multiple games)
- F1 2000 (EA Sports)
- A number of early screenshots feature 1999 season cars.
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- Early development plans
- Guidebook images showing an earlier build of the game.
- Magazine scans originally advertising it as an expansion to Grand Theft Auto III.
- E3 2002 coverage.
- Earlier story draft of a game where you played as an undercover FBI agent.
- Inazuma Eleven Victory Road
- Loooooooads to cover, especially considering it's gone through nearly a decade of development hell.
- Official blog.
- Famitsu scans from August 2016 to September 2018.
- Lollipop Chainsaw
- The PAX 2011 build contains numerous differences to the final release. The person hosting the demo even said that the rooms would be randomized and would change with each subsequent playthrough, but this feature never made it into the final product.
- The Bus Makeover trailer shows the game running in debug mode (with action scripts listed to the left), as well as having very primitive models, textures, and shading. Juliet's model, for one, has humongous eyes and lips, while her model in the final game has realistically-proportioned facial features.
- Manhunt
- Concept art found in the game.
- March 2001 preview.
- Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
- This reddit post highlights many cut characters from Marvel vs Capcom 3.
- Mega Man Legacy Collection (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
- Mega Man X4
- Early screen from Sega Saturn World.
- Persona 5 Royal
- Interview about the game's rough development [2]
- Pokémon GO
- Prerelease info and early screenshots (or mockups?) were shown at GDC 2017.
- Prey (2006)
- Like Duke Nukem Forever, the 2006 Prey was another game from 3D Realms that spent years in development. The Prey Museum has lots of information to add.
- Return of the Obra Dinn
- Devlog thread, including various prerelease screenshots and videos.
- This dev interview includes a bit of footage from an unreleased early build.
- Shadow the Hedgehog
- Self-censorship (G.U.N. soldiers and Black Arms originally bled red blood) and an enemy radar.
- Is this early version of Digital Circuit's music real?
- Sonic Generations
- Early and/or prototype info here.
- Stellaris
- An early draft of an unused music track, never completed or used due to the tone of the game changing.
- The Adventures of Willy Beamish
- Concept art for Willy Beamish's designs are in the game's Hint Book and differ from the final game.
- TimeSplitters: Future Perfect
- Prerelease story design document from a former developer at Free Radical Design.
- Tomb Raider III
- Video showing prerelease stuff.
- Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
- Like the base game, there are some characters who were cut before launch, many of which were thanks to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
- Sources for characters.
Nintendo
- Various things at Nintendo's Space World and E3 sites:
- This service center update has footage of early versions of some Game Boy and SNES games, most notably Super Metroid "Ver. 0.1A".
- Nintendo employment leaflets have concept art for newer games, as well a photos of PC monitors with games being developed on.
- MarioWiki category page detailing multiple articles that list things that did not make it into various Mario games. These should be handled very carefully, and proper sources for the images/"facts" should be found beforehand.
- E3 2006 Disc.
- Archive of Nintendo 64 prerelease screenshots and rare cartridge images.
- Nintendo New York has had concept art displays over the years. Photos and videos of these displays are available on the internet. Known displays: Super Mario, Splatoon.
- 1990 Miyamoto Interview, Nintendo in Kyoto B-Roll (In Japanese)
- June 2013 interview with Aonuma
- April 2021 interview with Takaya Imamura
NES
- Captain Comic
- The source code to the NES version of Captain Comic was uploaded to the internet archive.[18]
- G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor
- Nintendo Power #29 has screenshots featuring General Hawk with his graphics from the first G.I. Joe NES game.
- Jaws
- The back of the box has screenshots where "the text "SHARK DAMAGE" is displayed above the power indicator instead of "JAWS' POWER." There is also no shell count or player power level shown, just a "man" count." (Source)
- Mega Man series
- Mega Man 3 (1, 2, 3)
- Early Elec Man and Bomb Man sprites and artwork, scrapped enemies (A, B), Gamma form 1 and 2 concepts, and other images.
- R.C. Pro-Am
- A magazine screenshot (the source escapes me) showed that the game was originally just called "Pro-Am" and had real cars without antennas. It should be noted that the racetracks in the final game have just "Pro-Am" on them.
- Robocco Wars
- Originally called "Aruden Raruden" and featured a different main character.
- Super Mario Bros.
- Iwata Asks (SMB 25th)
- Development info and concept art.
- Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to have the goal flag to only rise up to the point Mario touched it, a concept that was finally implemented into Super Mario 3D Land.
- The main theme originally had a much slower tempo, because it fit the basic prototype that was made at the time.
Game Boy (Color)
- Donkey Kong Land 2
- A 1996 VHS tape from Nintendo has a different title (Donkey Kong Land II: Diddy's Kong Quest) as well as levels that differ from the final version.
- Double Dragon II
- American Technos was originally going to localize Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun: Bangai Rantouhen as "The Renegades".
SNES
- Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
- Pictures on the game's main page and subpage.
Nintendo 64
- Hybrid Heaven
- Very early screenshots in Computer and Video Games #190 (September 1997).
Prerelease Media - While digging through archives I came across a lot of prerelease information and screenshots for N64 games. In this collection, I have saved a large number of screenshots and media files that either show prerelease content, or were from a site showing content from the games prior to their release. Due to the amount of content I was going through, I haven't checked all this content to see if it contained any relevant prerelease content, so there are likely a number of screenshots, that though prerelease, show only content that is present in the final game. The media are sorted by game, with a Links.txt file containing links from which the images from the given game were collected. These links may also prove useful, as many link to pages that contain prerelease info in addition to screenshots. If you use any of these on TCRF, please leave a comment on my talk page so that I can keep track of them.
Game Boy Advance
- Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
- There's some early screenshots which held over the SNES version's HUD, most notably the reserve item box.
GameCube
- Animal Crossing
- Early "Animal Forest" logo from Nintendo Difference video, Spaceworld 2001.
- Pokémon Box Ruby & Sapphire
- There was a demo playable/video shown at ECTS in London in August 2003 (game was referred to as "Pokémon Box").
- Soul Calibur II
- There was a demo playable/video shown at ECTS in London in August 2003.
DS(i)
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
- A June 2006 article from NetLab contains several prerelease screenshots of the game's courtroom (most notably the defense and prosecution screens, though the witness stand was also changed) which showcase a noticeably different design from the one shown later that year at TGS 2006 that was later used in the final game. Additionally, an unaltered sprite of the Judge from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is also shown, where the final game alters it to more closely fit its art style.
- Pokémon Dash
- The game was originally a tech demo for the DS, even though the whole Pikachu interaction thing made it to the title screen. Was it originally going to be a follow-up to Hey You, Pikachu!?
- Professor Layton and the Curious Village
- Trademark was filed in Jul. 2006 where it was originally going to be called "Touch Mystery".
- Interview about the franchise's creation.
- Scribblenauts
- A July 2009 Nintendo Power article shows a completely different World 7 from the final.
- Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
- Early screenshots, most notably these two stitched together, from IGN's hands-on preview, as well as alternate music for Central City.
- WarioWare: Snapped! - there's some screenshots of a scrapped "pose with comics" mode in "fro_Nintendo" Nintendo leaks.
Wii
- MadWorld
- Jack Cayman went through many revisions before they settled on his final design.
- A Bloodbath Challenge that involved launching enemies out of a giant slingshot was cut.
- Prototype footage.
- Super Paper Mario
- Originally on GameCube (the main article mentions this).
- Floor demos (the level number correspond to the final level number; see linked pages for details on early level numbers...if they are real):
- Trailers and other videos:
- Good-quality screenshots
- GDC demo description and screenshots
- More: [55], [56], [57] (yes), [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], [64].
- Interview.
3DS
- Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion
- If the Alice in Wonderland world content isn't found in the game's files, document it in a prerelease page.
- Gabrielle's Ghostly Groove
- This blog post has early screenshots of the game.
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
- This image from a GDC 2011 trailer shows a bottle poster that was replaced.
- Rhythm Thief & The Emperor's Treasure
- [Archived links] to mockup or prototype screenshots of a DS build, which was scrapped in favor of moving production to the then-upcoming 3DS hardware.
Wii U
- Bayonetta 2
- The E3 2013 trailer and demo contain noticeable differences from the final product, such as slightly different models (i.e. Bayonetta's earrings contain the Triforce in them, and Jeanne's model looks very unpolished), Bayonetta's hair not coming off her body during Wicked Weaves, and no dialogue.
- The development trailer shows brief clips of the development in progress, as well as the palms of Bayonetta's gloves being purple instead of blue.
- Footage of a prototype build.
- Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
- Visible debug display at the top-left of the screen in April 8, 2014's Nintendo Direct accompanied by text translating as "HP remaining", presumably for a stage boss. The text appears on the Palutena's Temple stage.
- The Wonderful 101
- The game was originally going to be a Nintendo crossover title.
- The "Project P-100" build has numerous differences from the final release. Also from the period in which the game was Project P-100, the character renders looked slightly different.
- Concept art found in the in-game Gallery shows that the characters went through many different revisions. One of the recurring characters, Luka Alan Smithee, is named "Luka Redgrave" in his concept art. (Luka Redgrave is a recurring character in the Bayonetta series. Both characters wear the same exact scarf, and both carry a camera.)
Nintendo Switch
- Kirby and the Forgotten Land
- Some pre-release footage probably features somewhat early version(s) of the game (e.g. some have visible z-fighting).
- https://twitter.com/HAL_Laboratory/status/1507191821054918663 / https://www.hallab.co.jp/blog/detail/4105/
- https://twitter.com/NintendoEurope/status/1506924671236808707 / https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2022/March/Ask-the-Developer-Vol-4-Kirby-and-the-Forgotten-Land-2187039.html
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/03/25/kirby-forgotten-land-features/
- https://twitter.com/HAL_Laboratory/status/1512264738939744259 / https://www.hallab.co.jp/blog/detail/4133/
- Luigi's Mansion 3
- The in game Art Viewer contains numerous pieces of concept art showing floors, characters and ideas not featured in the final game. These include artwork of Amadeus Wolfgeist playing other instruments, early designs for the Foyer, early designs for the Last Resort as a whole featuring what seems like an amusement park themed floor, and a three headed version of the Venus Fly Trap like plant used by Dr Potter in his boss battle.
- Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
- The game was originally going to feature a Rabbid Whomp character.
- Sailor Moon-style transformations were planned at one point.
- The Phantom was originally going to have rap and metal versions of his song for the second and third phases of the fight, but these were cut for not working well.
- Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit has what appears to be a prerelease screenshot on a page of the official Japanese site.
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Many, many unused ideas are shown in the Art of Super Mario Odyssey book, include Bowser having his own evil version of Cappy, him possessing Peach, Rosalina as a musician, New Donk City with a Mario aesthetic and designs based on Doki Doki Panic to name but a few.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- The Creating a Champion book contains numerous sketches of unused ideas, including Divine Beasts, older Guardian designs, older town designs, Hyrule as it was 100 years ago, and a Lynel-esque design for Horse God Malayna. This book will need looking through in its entirety at some point.
- At one point, the game had aliens and a futuristic theme to it, which was shown in a 2017 GDC presentation.
- The Minish were considered for this game, but scrapped because having them and the shrinking mechanic in the large open world were technically difficult to implement.
- Yoshi's Crafted World has prerelease screenshots/trailers and some concept art
Sega
Master System
- Pit-Fighter
- Screenshots displaying a different HUD (mostly cropped off in the screenshots) and different placements for the character names. Southside Jim is known as "Southsid", Chainman Eddie is known as "Ainman Edd", and you could choose the characters to play as rather than the three default ones.
Genesis
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- John Madden Football '93
- Pulseman
- Beep! MegaDrive (April 1994 issue, page 46)
- Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
- Plenty of early coverage.
- Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel
- The box has a screenshot where Zero's head on the HUD shows him smiling like a lunatic. This icon never appears in the final game.
Game Gear
- Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble
- Magazine screenshots show Nack/Fang with a gun.
Sony
PlayStation
- WipEout
- Early screenshots appeared in magazines with a different HUD (find them).
- An early version, possibly tech demo, featured in the movie Hackers.
PlayStation 2
- Gran Turismo 4
- Some early screenshots feature the Lancer Evo VII WRC from GT Concept, which was cut and ultimately replaced with the Super Rally Car (loosely based on Mitsubishi's 2004 WRC car, but with the 1997 livery). The Evo VII WRC might be in the GT4P-based demos.
- Hot Wheels World Race (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Windows)
- There are some early screenshots on IGN’s website.
- The game manual has some early screenshots as well, may have been towards the final stage of development.
- WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It
- Screenshots exist of Ivory wearing her Right to Censor outfit.
- Early gameplay footage.
PlayStation 3
- Gran Turismo 5
- The E3 2009 trailer (as well as the teaser trailer included in GTPSP's ending credits) features 2009 NASCAR cars (with rear wings), which was dropped in the final game in favor of 2010 cars with rear spoilers. GTPSP does have entries for "NASCAR Demo Type A" to "NASCAR Demo Type D", which may be related to this.
PlayStation 4
- Gran Turismo Sport
- A presentation document shows a Volkswagen GTI Supersport Vision GT Gr.B Rally Car, while Copper Box presentation build has the Mazda Roadster N200 - a similar looking version of Roadster was originally meant as Mazda's Gr.4 car before being replaced with Atenza (Mazda6).
- Gran Turismo 7
- The build shown at the PS5 launch stream is completely different. The PlayStation Experience, Behind the Scenes videos, and State of Play videos for the game also contain some pre-release differences, with obvious recording dates since the game displays date and time in the menus.
PlayStation Portable
- Danganronpa: Kibou no Gakuen to Zetsubou no Koukousei
- Early concept and execution.
- Trailer differences.
- Early concept ideas and screenshots.
- More screenshots and possible development info.
- Concept art.
- Notes on the early concept.
- Screenshots of both the early concept and prerelease ideas.
- A few more screenshots of the early concept and concept art.
- Prerelease info and screenshots.
Microsoft
DOS
- Hoyle's Official Book of Games has different character graphics in the pictures on the back of the box.
- Rise of the Triad
- The game was originally another expansion pack for Wolfenstein 3D like Spear of Destiny, but was axed due to the impending release of Doom. A good number of elements from this early version exist in the final game. Also mention the Doom Bible's small influence on RotT (multiple playable characters with small gameplay differences, names like Thi Barrett and Taradin(a/o) Cassatt).
- This video shows the female Low Guard and alternate High Guard in action at 0:11, and this one is the video capturing sessions of the alternate Lightning Guard, Low Guard, and Strike Team.
- Manual things - the female Low Guard can be seen in the Wanderwalls screenshot on p. 12, as well as in the enemy list. The female Strike Team is mentioned in the list as well, and was planned to appear in the Deluxe edition.
- System Shock
Xbox 360
- Crackdown 2
- Kameo: Elements of Power
- This game seriously needs a prerelease page, considering it was in development for four different systems (N64, GameCube, Xbox and finally Xbox 360).
- This YouTube playlist has a bunch of stuff from the late-GameCube to early-Xbox days of development.
- Some stuff mentioned in Rare Replay.
- Saints Row
- Tengai Makyou Ziria: Harukanaru Jipang
- Screenshots of an unreleased English localization were shown.
Windows
- Alan Wake
- The game had a rather lengthy development, with footage dating all the way back to 2005!
- Astrobatics
- There are initial screenshots that can be accessed via The Wayback Machine, from when the game was in its early stages. They can be seen here.
- Bejeweled Deluxe
- Prerelease:Carmageddon: Total Destruction Racing 2000
- Early screenshots can be found here https://rr2000.cwaboard.co.uk/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=32
- Command & Conquer: Generals
- There are two prerelease videos, if this thread is to be believed. Hopefully, they're still on the Internet somewhere.
- Possible cut building seen on page 150 of the official stategy guide?
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
- Fallout 2
- Half-Life 2: Episode One
- The game was originally known as "Half-Life 2: Aftermath" and was supposed to release in 2005. A lot of media exists for when this game was titled "Half-Life 2: Aftermath".
- La-Mulana (2006)
- Scrapped music tracks distributed in the La-Mulana Jukebox program, along with lots of content in the dump of the developers' website at lamulana/.
- LEGO Island
- The July-August 1996 issue of LEGO Mania magazine features early box art from back when the game was called "Adventures on LEGO Island".
- Early screenshots of LEGO Racers and LEGO Racers 2.
- It also mentions several issues of the LEGO Mania magazine that have early screenshots of LEGO Racers, LEGO Racers 2, and LEGO Rock Raiders. They can be found here.
- Minecraft
- The game's developers have posted a lot of photos and info from early versions of the game on their Twitter and Instagram accounts that differ from the final game.
- Outpost
- Apparently this game was criticized because the developers promised features that didn't actually make it into the final game. Some of these were even mentioned in the game manual. In addition, the PC Gamer review was based on a prerelease version of the game.
- OMORI
- The Game had some early development before the demo in 2014.
- Portal Stories: Mel
- The developers uploaded a playthrough of a 2013 build.
- An early version of Past Power on Steam Workshop.
- Aperture Leisure scrapped area.
- Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo
- There's a few prototype screenshots from the old Humongous website, and a really early one in a Humongous catalog that came with a few games around 1995.
- SimCity 3000
- Current progress for newly found content can be seen here (E3 footage and other screenshots)
- Article which describes the game was originally going to use a 3D engine.
- Small article describing early designs for buildings that appear in the in-game screenshots.
- The Sims 3
- Plenty of screenshots to upload go in a gallery, with press tours showing some differences with the final release.
- The Sims 4
- Development started way back in 2008, when The Sims 3 was nearing completion. It was originally going to be an online game, under the working title "Sims Olympus" which could be found on various portfolio sites. It was scrapped due to poor performance issues. Here's a blog describing the development.
- Urban Chaos
- Early footage can be found here.
Misc.
iOS/Android
LaserActive
- Tons of prerelease videos/images at LaserActive Preservation Project (+ @MaxKriegerVG)
WonderSwan Color
- Namco Super Wars
- Official site screens are different from final.
- Video: early version, (apparently) final version.