What Could Have Been/Video Games



Video game development is a long, hard, and convoluted process, and often things are cancelled, removed or Dummied Out. Maybe something just didn't work in practice, or they didn't have time to implement it in the way they wanted. Whatever the reasons, we can only wonder What Could Have Been.

Final Fantasy Series

 * In early 2001, only a few months after the release of Final Fantasy IX, Square announced their intentions to remake the entire Final Fantasy series on then-current generation systems. I, II, and III were slated for the Wonderswan Color; IV, V, and VI were being planned for the Game Boy Advance; VII, VIII, and IX were to be remade for the PlayStation 2, which came out the previous year. The PlayStation 2 remakes would be released on DVDs, with updated graphics and sound, and would also include bonus features. However, Final Fantasy the Spirits Within was released that summer and bombed at the box office, resulting in a massive financial loss for Square of between $50-120 million. The film had been directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy and Square's vice president, who resigned under pressure from company executives. The hand-held FF remakes were delayed for several years (except for the one of III, which was canceled entirely, though it did eventually get one on the Nintendo DS), and the PlayStation 2 remakes were canceled entirely.
 * Final Fantasy II's NES version would have had an English release, but in the end it was canceled as the 16-bit era drew nearer, IV was brought over instead, and II wouldn't see the light of day in the western hemisphere until Final Fantasy Origins. A prototype of the ROM exists, although with a hilariously awful translation.
 * In the originally planned ending of Final Fantasy VI, Terra would have been a male character in his twenties and died with the other Espers. In the ending of the final version, she receives instructions on how to specifically avoid this fate and does.
 * There was originally going to be a game for the Famicom called Final Fantasy IV. Other than the fact that it existed at some point, not much is known about it except that it was canceled and the Super Famicom/SNES game starring a Dark Knight named Cecil Harvey that was planned to be Final Fantasy V was renamed Final Fantasy IV (or Final Fantasy II, in the case of the first English-language version and its Virtual Console release) due to the cancellation of the 8-bit game that was going to have that title. Its cancellation also resulted in every future game having a number lower than it would have had; had the game with Cecil and Kain that ended up as IV stayed as V, we would have ended up with Final Fantasy V being called VI and so on, which would have resulted in people arguing over whether, for example, IV, VI, or VII is the best arguing over V, VII, and VIII
 * The game that ended up being called Final Fantasy IV had some portions of its script tossed out before it was finished, not unlike fellow Squaresoft game Secret of Mana. Fortunately, restoring at least part of it was one of the goals of the Nintendo DS remake.
 * Final Fantasy VII had a ton of these. In the supplementary material books you can read up on about a dozen different drafts for almost every plot point and character in the game - naturally all of these books are Japan only and have no official translation. Here's just some of the plot points that weren't used: Sephiroth was originally going to be Aeris's brother, or maybe her lover, or both. Midgar was going to be the real-world New York City, or maybe a giant floating misshapen world in the sky. Vincent Valentine was going to be a traveling Mulder-like detective researching bogus supernatural cases. Yuffie was going to be a bounty hunter. And there would have been Job Classes, too. There was also a choice of who to kill, Aeris or Barret, they ultimately chose Aeris because she would have more impact than if they used Barret.
 * In fact, Aerith was going to be the only female party member in the game (and there would only be three members, Barret making the third.) Tifa was added later in development when the writers realized there was no character conflict, and the party would be too flat without something to unify them (in this case, a possible love triangle.)
 * Additionally, Red XIII was originally intended to be the character who was cloned by Hojo, as opposed to Sephiroth. After defeating the clones, the party would have confronted the mad scientist and killed him earlier than they do in the actual game. This seems to suggest that Hojo wasn't originally as important to the plot as he eventually became. And as for the clones, they were originally going to return as minions of Sephiroth. The clones were originally named Cobalt and Jade, leading to the idea that they may have been re-envisioned into the WEAPON supermonsters who are minions of The Planet rather than Sephiroth.
 * Sephiroth himself was definitely no exception to this: Most notably, one of his earliest character concepts was essentially to make him a clone of Kefka Palazzo from the previous game. To elaborate, he was originally supposed to be a man whose Jenova element was awakened artificially due to exposure to Mako energy. His base personality was already extraordinarily cruel and brutal, and had a morbid fascination with destruction and slaughter. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? He also was supposed to suffer from Mako addiction like everyone else, only unlike everyone else, he actually becomes much more insane than before yet keeping his composure.
 * Jenova is a massive change from it's original concept, as explained in "Another Hypothesis". Initially, Jenova was supposed to be a gene that was a part of every person, and that Aeris could use this power naturally because she's a Cetra. Shinra's methods for creating SOLDIER are the same as the final product, but they, along with Sephiroth, were "awakened" beings with the gene. The Turks would be the people who were able to sense the usage of Jenova, and they would bring the subjects back to Shinra for experimentation.
 * Edea was originally conceived as a Final Fantasy VII character; most likely a humanoid version of Jenova given her personality in the final game.
 * Concept art of Final Fantasy IX shows two protagonists named Bahamut Dragoon and Liviathan [sic Dragoon], and a bunch of characters using more traditional job classes from the earlier titles (some examples here and here). The art style also resembled that of Final Fantasy Tactics.
 * The concept art for the "Rat Knight" ended up becoming Fratley and Freya, with genders changed and motivations split down the middle.
 * It's also kind of hard to not think of Amarant when looking at the Elementalist guy.
 * The entire game was originally planned as the first in a spinoff series made to appeal to old school fans.
 * Concept Art shows Queen Brahne having a couch-sized cat and Garland would have beared more of a resemblance towards the Garland from Final Fantasy I.
 * Final Fantasy XII was supposed to originally have Basch as the main character, as well as a more familiar relationship between Vaan and Ashe (ie like siblings) which would have given him more of a reason for joining The Party. Penelo's brothers were supposed to be in the resistance, and there would be interactive airship battles ala Star Wars. When all of these ideas were turned down, in the middle of development several developers left Square Enix in protest.
 * Game director Yasumi Matsuno purportedly suffered a nervous breakdown during development of the game, and left both the project as well as Square Enix. The reins of the game were given to Akitoshi Kawazu.
 * In a recent interview, Yasumi Matsuno said that it was Balthier who was originally the protagonist, then Basch, and then finally Vaan.
 * This is supported by the fact that Balthier and Fran were the first playable characters to be revealed.
 * This also makes Balthier's meta-references to himself as the "leading man" even more hilarious.
 * Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings was meant to be an original story and completely unrelated to Final Fantasy XII.
 * Final Fantasy XIII was planned for the PlayStation 2, the battle system would have been more dynamic and action-based, battles would've taken place on the field map, Lightning would have gravity-based powers that influenced gameplay, Serah would have been the seventh party member, and Oerba Yun Fang was going to be a male character (explains the Les Yay she and Vanille have, doesn't it?).
 * The game had a very tortured development period. Early trailers showing the battle system were more akin to concept art, and there was a retrospective consensus that the team lacked a unified vision for how the game would actually play. You can read more about it here.
 * According to the Final Fantasy XIII Ultimania Omega, the development team at one point considered making Vanille the official main character of the game, but dismissed the idea as they had already released a trailer and art featuring Lightning in that role.
 * Dissidia Final Fantasy considered several characters for the lineup, but they were rejected for various reasons. One of these characters was Seifer Almasy, who, in spite of his rivalry with Squall, was replaced with Ultimecia, because he would probably turn out too similar to Squall. Seymour was replaced by Jecht because Tidus/Seymour lacked the kind of personal relationship the other hero/villain combos had. Also included in the list are Kain Highwind, Locke Cole, Yuna, Prishe, Vaan, Balthier, and Lightning, though most of these guys made it into the sequel.
 * Nomura stated that he first planned for Dissidia to be a Kingdom Hearts game... but Disney didn't like the idea of Disney characters fighting each other.
 * The Ivalice-related spin-off Vagrant Story had a sequel planned for the Gamecube sometime before 2003.
 * Final Fantasy X was originally going to offer online elements but this plan was scrapped early in development.

Legend of Zelda series

 * This is Tetra as depicted in her prerelease artwork for The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker. Even though it was not outright stated, this design seem to indicate that she was originally meant to be an inhabitant of Windfall island, rather than a pirate. It is also questionable if she was already meant  in this stage of development.
 * Screenshots of beta Ocarina of Time showed that the game went through plenty of changes. Originally, there were two extra dungeons - Wind and Ice - which were scrapped (the ice temple was turned into the Ice Caverns and the Wind Temple was reused in The Wind Waker). Screenshots show Link with the Medallions equipped to the C buttons, indicating that they were at one point designed to actually serve as weapons. A screenshot of octoroks showed that they were originally designed to look much more like their 2D versions (like largeish tick-things on the ground, rather than being aquatic like their namesake animals). Finally, there's the infamous picture of Link finding the Triforce in a cave, which is a pretty good indicator that at one point the player could find the Triforce but it was eventually removed. Not that that's stopped people from still looking…
 * The 64DD expansion to The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. Some commentators wonder if Master Quest really represents what the original intention was. An expanded overworld? New dungeons?
 * Master Quest is not the original Ura Zelda. I read that in an old copy of Wikipedia which refers to a dead link, Ura Zelda would've had new dungeons (possibly the fire/ice dungeon,) new items, new attacks, magic spells, and custom masks created via Mario Artist: Talent Studio and the Game Boy Camera.
 * Not to mention Majora's Mask's origins as another 64DD expansion to OoT called Zelda Gaiden, and even OoT itself's origins as a 64DD launch title heavily reliant on rewritability for much-hyped persistent world features.
 * The wind temple in Ocarina of Time was changed to the Forest Temple. Saria was supposed to have less of a role in the game, or possibly a different role, since she didn't teach you any songs. Fado was also supposed to be a sage, the wind sage specifically, but her role was replaced by Saria and she was given an almost insignificant role.
 * The Wind Waker itself had the last two dungeons (prior to the final one) Dummied Out due to time constraints and replaced with the controversial Triforce Fetch Quest. The number of dungeons clocked at seven and not nine as intended.
 * Twilight Princess originally had a different theme for the Twilight Realm, being in black and white rather than overcontrasted (the final version).
 * Imagine if you will, Gorons piled together to make a giant-sized golem. Dummied Out.
 * Shiek (Zelda's disguise from Oo T) was originally going to return in this game, but was scrapped for unknown reasons. This also resulted in a Development Gag in Super Smash Bros. Brawl where Shiek's return in that game as one of Zelda's abilities was actually based on this abandoned concept.
 * Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages were originally conceived as an Updated Rerelease of the original game and Zelda II the Adventure of Link, along with a brand new game centering on the Triforce of Courage. This eventually evolved into three new games. However, it became too troublesome to link three games, so it was simplified to two. Either way, the former's origin as a remake of the original game can be seen to an extent; the overworld of Holodrum, the country the final game is set in, is laid out similarly to the first game's incarnation of the series's usual setting of Hyrule, and the first dungeon is laid out like the first game's first dungeon (down to the shape shown on the in-game map), even having the same boss.
 * Early on in development, Skyward Sword used standard button controls for swordplay. As Wii Motion Plus came into play, motion controls were added in.
 * Also, switching items involved twisting your wrist rather than pointing in a certain direction.
 * The Legend of Zelda Overworld Theme was originally going to be Ravel's Bolero.
 * Only the title screen music would've been Bolero. The overworld music had already been composed, and they arranged that music to match the speed of the title scroll.

Left 4 Dead Series

 * Francis and Zoey were originally going to have an interest in each other, but the idea was scrapped due to complaints that it was too distracting.
 * Zoey's voice actor during the beta stages of the game was slightly different compared to the current voice actor (beta Zoey has a somewhat deeper voice compared to the current Zoey voice). The sound files for the beta voice actor is still used if Zoey triggers the start of a finale. Zoey's screams when she falls to her death are also from the voice actor in the beta stages, but this one was intentionally kept in the game because Valve liked how well the screams sounded.
 * Francis originally had a different look (along with the rest of the cast) that showed him to be overweight. Hilariously in the final version of the game, Louis will call Francis fat if he gets shot by him, even though Francis is currently muscular.
 * During the No Mercy campaign, Bill was supposed to express paranoia about becoming an infected, but this was changed to Bill asking his fellow survivors to shoot him should he ever turn.
 * Pipe Bombs did not have the smoke alarm attached to it at first, so it was a standard grenade. Testing proved the use of the grenade was too difficult since infected tend to not stay in place when they chase you, so they added the attraction feature on the bomb to make the zombies go after it.
 * Valve originally planned the game to be restarted from the very first map if all the players died. This was changed to have the survivors restart on the map they died in instead since it was simply too much to lose all that progress from the past 40 minutes. The idea was revisited in Left 4 Dead 2 in the Iron Man mutation mode.
 * Similarly, survivors that died stayed dead until the next map. Valve decided that dead players waiting over 10 minutes to play again was just too much and they brainstormed the idea of rescue closets where, in logic, a survivor that was too injured barricaded themselves in a closet but are now trapped. Not only this covered the problem of players rejoining quickly, but also mimics the zombie movies where survivors find other survivors trapped in a room.
 * The helicopter pilot from the No Mercy campaign was supposed to become an infected after he rescued you, causing the helicopter to crash and start the events of the next campaign. Play testers found this concept too depressing since they felt all the fighting the survivors done to get saved was a total waste, so they made each campaign their own story. This idea has been revisited in the sequel where the campaigns are connected to each other and Valve also retconned the L4D1 campaigns to be connected in the story.
 * Survivors were able to lock doors to slow down the infected, but the idea got scrapped for making the game too easy.
 * Left 4 Dead 2 originally had melee weapons break, but it was scrapped for being too annoying. Similarly, the wooden walkways in the Swamp Fever campaign could break and force the survivors to wade through the water, but it was also found to be too annoying and cut.
 * Melee weapons could also be dual wielded, but the idea was cut after tests showed the idea could not be balanced.
 * Left 4 Dead 2 was supposed to have an ammo pack, an item that a player could deploy where the team got more ammo. This idea clashed with Valve's idea of "less ammo piles for more guns" and play testers saw the ammo pack as worthless since it replaces the first aid kit, so they scrapped the ammo pack concept.
 * Similarly, fire and explosive ammo were to be generated by the AI Director randomly which survivors could get an infinite supply from, but play testers were reluctant to leave the area since they wanted to keep the special bullets. This idea was changed to being a deployed ammo pack that survivors could place at any time and be used by one survivor each.
 * Laser sights was a concept that was planned for L4D1 but got scrapped due to time constraints, but some modded servers have the lasers enabled. Lasers appeared for L4D2.
 * Bile Bombs originally were able to splash other players, creating the same effect as being hit by a Boomer's vomit, but this feature got disabled for, you guessed it, being too annoying in the heat of a major fight.
 * VS mode originally allowed players to take control of a common infected while they wait to respawn as a special infected, but this was cut due to how weak common infected were in general and would just frustrate players.
 * First Aid Kits originally could be passed to another player like pills could, but this was removed since it was just easier to use the kit on a wounded survivor than to give it to them for them to use on themselves.
 * When a survivor was incapacitated, they had the ability to crawl so they weren't stuck in one place. This idea got axed for making the survivors negating any damage done to them by being able to move around and crawl to their teammates for help. Some modded servers have this feature enabled today.
 * Smokers and Hunters originally had the ability let go of their victims to attack a different survivor. The concept was cut out due to it making the Smoker and Hunter too overpowered (in this scenario, Smokers and Hunters could incapacitate a survivor and let them go to quickly take down another survivor) and it made getting their achievements too easy. In a similar fashion, Boomers originally had the ability to explode if they fell from a great height, effectively going kamikaze on survivors and splashing them in bile before they could react. AI controlled Boomers in campaign mode can still do this (usually unintentionally) but this feature is disabled in VS mode for obvious reasons.
 * Boomers originally did not have the horde summoning ability and it was essentially a walking undead bomb whose explosion dealt major damage to anyone that was too close when it popped after being shot. At the same time, another infected, called the Screamer, was being tested where it could not attack survivors but if spotted, it would run away and let out a scream that called a horde. When Valve scrapped the Screamer, it merged the horde calling ability to the Boomer and scrapped the explosive damage idea for it.
 * The Spitter, Jockey, and Charger had several design changes as Left 4 Dead 2 was being developed, but the Jockey and Spitter stand out for several reasons:
 * The Spitter's first design had it in a nightgown which was scrapped because Valve had difficulty trying to render a free flowing piece of clothing. The next design made it look like a female Boomer in a sense, but was also scrapped. The design after that made the Spitter look like a zombie and pregnant version of Pippi Longstocking, which Valve quickly scrapped when play testers made pregnancy jokes until they came up with the final design of the Spitter. The Spitter's spit originally stuck to a survivor that got hit and it would damage them over time, but it was cut out for being too overpowered. The acid pool from the Spitter also changed colors to reflect its intensity but it was then changed to be just green.
 * The Jockey's special ability went through several iterations. The first design had the Jockey grab both of the survivor's arms and restrict them. The second design had the Jockey completely block the survivor's vision, which would also make the player being ridden on also blind. The final version of the Jockey's attack has it clawing at the survivor's face while leaning to force the survivor to move in that direction.
 * The first map of The Parish campaign for Left 4 Dead 2 was originally supposed to be a lot longer. Instead of the map ending in the convenience store, it would continue on through the park and the bus parking lot. However, the length of the map was simply too long and it was cut down into two maps instead. You can actually access this beta map on the PC version by entering in the console "map c5m1_waterfront_sndscape" (without quotation marks).
 * Before Left 4 Dead started development Valve worked on a fantasy game involving Fairies. It wasn't very good so it was scrapped. Valve thought some sort of co-op game would be better instead which eventually led to Left 4 Dead.

Mass Effect Series

 * Mass Effect 2 had several gameplay elements and sequences deleted from the game before it's release. By hacking the PC version, it's possible to discover deleted files and voiceovers that reference these deleted elements. Chief among them was the ability to go for any of the recruitment missions at any time after you received the Normandy SR2 (including Legion, who only shows up in the final game on the mission just before the endgame begins).
 * The original tutorial mission would have featured Legion and Liara retrieving Shepard's body from Cerberus.
 * It was possible at one point to have gay and lesbian love interests, but these were removed from the final product.
 * At one point, Mordin would have had the option to create a biotic field (during the “Long Walk” portion of the suicide mission). Several voice files were recorded with Mordin telling the team he can create a biotic field, and his reactions during that section of the mission.
 * Deleted voice files indicate that there would have been a confrontation scene between Mordin and Grunt. This was removed to focus on confrontations between possible love interests (Tali, Miranda, and Jack).
 * The Harbinger originally had a longer ending speech as Shepard and his/her team flee the Collector base, where he comments that many more Reapers will be coming soon. It is believed that Shepard's dialogue in the worst possible ending, where, references this deleted footage.
 * It was possible at one point to complete Tali's loyalty mission without ever seeing.
 * Several plotlines and missions were cut from Mass Effect 3, including a large amount of material that was part of an early script for the game (which leaked in November 2011):
 * A much longer and much more involved Priority: Earth mission, according to the leaked script and deleted audio files found on-disc. Several characters (including a Geth Prime, Grunt, Jack, Jacob and Zaeed, possibly among others) had dialogue related to killing Reaper forces on Earth, while the push to the Conduit was severely stripped down from its original idea. Depending on the player's EMS (in the script), Joker could swoop in with the Normandy and blow a hole in the Reaper lines, and Shepard would make a run for the Conduit. The resulting scenes would have either depicted Shepard entering the Conduit just as Anderson is attacked by a husk, both of them entering the beam together (and severely injured) or the final ending where Shepard gets up alone, bloody and bruised before making his/her way towards the Conduit.
 * The leaked script had several descriptions of aborted/unused missions, including:
 * A mission where Aria asks you to help her retake Omega from Cerberus control. Shepard and a team make it down to the planet's surface, then discover that Zaeed is working as an enforcer for the organization. The player then had the choice to either convince Zaeed to stop working for them or kill him when he doesn't cooperate.
 * A set of missions where a terrorist attack at the Citadel leaves dozens of casualties, and Commander Bailey puts every Hanar into an internment for security measures. Shepard then discovers that the Reapers have set up a base in the Hanar systems, and must stop it. This had a follow-up mission where you would travel with Kasumi (if she survived the previous game) to the planet, and unless the player saved the Graybox in 2, . This was streamlined for the final game.
 * At least one mission where Shepard and a team would assist in the evacuation of Palaven.
 * Javik's recruitment mission (and purpose) was entirely different. While the team found him on Eden Prime, he has a completely different entrance (he is revealed standing in a crater surrounded by dead Cerberus agents), and it is revealed that he's The Catalyst. Later on, Shepard finds Ashley/Kaidan holding a gun on Javik (simply called "The Prothean" in this script), and Shepard has to choose between convincing them to stand down or killing them to save the Prothean.
 * A mission where you would escort reporters Khalisah Al-Jilani and Emily Wong (who was alive in the script) into the Citadel Wards to question witnesses and catch footage of Cerberus atrocities, ensuring that no one on the Citadel would ever work with Cerberus again.
 * A plotline where Kai Leng convinced the Virmire Survivor to work with him. Later on, at Thessia, Shepard is injured after a piece of rebar gets impaled in his/her side, and s/he has to choose between saving Liara or the VS (who are both in danger at the same time).
 * The "Art of Mass Effect 3" book shows that the Illusive Man was originally intended to be the final boss of the trilogy - he would transform into a Reaper-fied creature, and Shepard would have had to fight him.
 * Drew Karpyshyn's original idea for the third game's ending involved "Dark Energy", which was foreshadowed in Tali's recruitment mission during 2 and hinted at in the Arrival DLC. The game originally ended with a choice for Shepard to destroy the Reapers (and let the galaxy fend for itself against the "tech singularity", which would arrive sometime in the far future), or allow the Reapers to assimilate humanity in an "ends justify the means" scenario.

Metal Gear Solid Series

 * Gameplay-wise, Metal Gear Solid originally had a lot of the improvements that Sons of Liberty had such as dragging bodies and hiding in lockers but weren't implemented in the final version.
 * It was also going to have music that would change throughout different areas.
 * Decoy Octopus was said to have a battle planned similar to Laughing Octopus in MGS 4.
 * Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty originally made even less sense. Rose was supposed to be a hostage on the Big Shell itself, who would constantly be moved as Raiden would go to rescue her, leading the player to doubt her existence. Pliskin would have been blond and worn a crucifix, Snake and Otacon would use their real names when alone together to suggest at their intimacy, Johnny Sasaki would have had a Heroic Sacrifice, three characters named for characters in Paul Auster's New York Trilogy would have been Raiden's support (they would all have turned out to be AIs), and Fortune would have been a saxophonist slowly dying a blood condition (which would be treated by the originally female Vamp sucking her blood erotically). Most famously, two bosses were cut -- Oldboy, Big Boss's old trainer (recycled as The End and The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3) was instantly taken out, but The Chinaman, a Vietnamese swimmer and illusionist, stuck around long enough to have a boss battle arena built for him. His powers were eventually given to Vamp, and he got a small cameo appearance as the dead man with the long dark hair in Fatman's arms during a flashback. Bizarrely, the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater character, The Fear, was based on Raiden's original (and instantly rejected with extreme prejudice) design. The trailers (and during a flashback from Snake) show a scene of Snake outrunning the flood in the sinking tanker, but that was cut at the last minute because the actual gameplay was incredibly boring.
 * Before the New York Trilogy turning MGS2 into a huge-ass mindscrew, the plot would have been revolving around a typical terrorist-hijacked tanker.
 * The first draft was going to be set in the Middle East, with Snake fighting Liquid (who had faked his death and stolen some warheads). This setting was immediately abandoned when the Middle East conflict at the time began to heat up, making the plot tasteless.
 * The game was also going to have Arsenal Gear crash into the Twin Towers, and have the Statue of Liberty be moved to a different part of NY. (In the middle of the credits, it was going to show a news report of the Statue of Liberty's relocation, instead of the live-action clips of NYC. The script for the news report can be viewed in The Document of MGS2) It was also going to have Raiden cut the rope from an American flag and drop it on Solidus's dead body after defeating him. All of these things were cut once the 9/11 incident occurred, although most of them were reinstated eight years later with the release of the novelization.
 * Under the same reasons as above, it was also intended for Liquid Ocelot to crash Arsenal Gear into Manhattan, and that Vamp explicitly state that Dead Cell intended to launch the nuke directly at Manhattan instead of letting Solidus black out Manhattan via an EMP wave, but were cut (although retained in the 2009 Novelization).
 * Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots nearly ended with Snake and Otacon turning themselves in to the authorities and being dual-executed for their terrorist actions. It was changed when the staff flat-out mutinied. The final song, about a pair of criminals executed unfairly, remains as a monument to the original ending.
 * For a while, the BB Corp would have been naked when shedding their suits, but Hideo realized he'd get slapped with an AO rating, no ifs, ands, or buts (no pun intended). And there would have been two male BB-like characters who served a similar, Gender Flipped Fan Disservice role - "Snake-Man", a beautiful young man with tentacles coming out of his body, and "ADAM", a handsome Russian soldier. Maybe female fans would have felt less alienated by the B&B Corps if the men had been in it...
 * In terms of play mechanics, MGS4 was supposed to be more complex and have less Metal Gear-isms. Kojima talked in early interview that Snake could choose sides if he wanted in any of the conflicts (think Mercenaries) even mentioning times when Gekkos would ignore you or help you. There were supposed to be less visual cues like the exclamation point over an enemies head as you were supposed to be able to tell from their facial expressions and mannerisms. Elements of psychological warfare such as enemies who spotted you would threaten you instead of always trying to kill you.
 * In addition, according to Kaz Radio and other sources, MGS4 was originally not going to happen, with the series chronologically ending at 2, and release-order ending at 3, which also would have caused some problems since MGS2 ended on a cliffhanger. Thankfully, saner heads prevailed when MGS4 was finally decided to be released.
 * Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater's The End fight would have been a much longer cat-and-mouse, track-over-several days ordeal, as Kojima was inspired by an author's series of novels in which two snipers try to track each other. This was changed when it got too long and the staff literally booed him.
 * In terms of play mechanics, Snake Eater was to be an open-ended game in a huge connected jungle, with a night and day cycle and dynamic weather.
 * The scene where Sokolov and Snake apparently speak Russian in English was originally intended to have the characters actually speak Russian. However, outside of Akio Ohtsuka, who actually was perfectly willing to go through the effort of learning Russian, most of the cast did not want this.
 * The fight against the Shagohod was originally supposed to have an entirely separate form that acted as an escape pod that they had to destroy, but it was removed from the final version and instead replaced with Volgin merging with the Shagohod's wiring.
 * A beta trailer depicts Solid Snake traveling through the jungle instead of Naked Snake/Big Boss.
 * The game was originally going to be on the Play Station 3, but was put on PlayStation 2 due to the development of the Play Station 3 taking longer than expected.
 * Tiger Toys was planning a portable version of Metal Gear Solid for their short-lived portable platform Game.Com.

Sonic the Hedgehog Series

 * Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is rather famous for the number of levels that were planned for inclusion but ultimately cancelled, particularly the Hidden Palace Zone, of which there are traces scattered throughout the final game.
 * One of the planned stages is still in the game... sort of. The third act of Metropolis Zone is a modified version of a scrapped one-act zone called Genocide City Zone.
 * Which would likely have been called "Cyber City Zone" in the final game (presumably after consulting with people with slightly better knowledge of English vocabulary), and been largely an Expy of the first game's Scrap Brain Zone; it's telling that Metropolis Zone Act 3 was actually included for the sake of using the map they designed for Cyber City Zone, lest they waste it.
 * Less well-known is that Knuckles Chaotix was seemingly planned to feature several more characters, including Sonic. Also, the game was based off a cancelled game called Sonic Crackers, which went by the same concept, except with Sonic and Tails.
 * And then there's Sonic X-Treme...
 * Not to mention, Sonic X-Treme was originally going to be a 32X game codenamed "Sonic Mars", and was going to be based off Sat AM.
 * |Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 is no doubt a rushed, unfinished game, but this is only made worse by the fact that it looked promising at one point. Early tech demos from 2005 promised an actively changing day/night feature, an advanced physics engine, and a "free play" mode allowing players to control any of the characters, unbound by storyline. What we got is clearly a different story, but there are still remnants of the good ideas that once were: Crisis City is a graphically impressive level, for example, and if one digs around in the code of the game enough, the developers wanted to include Super Sonic as a playable character. Here's an example of an early trailer for '06
 * Also uncovered in the data was evidence that Metal Sonic was going to be given his own part in the game, such as missions, and even a story. That leaves to question just how cool it would have been to have Metal dropped into the mix. Just to reiterate... METAL SONIC. In. The. Same. Game. As. Mephiles.
 * Originally, Silver was going to be the same speed as Sonic and Shadow like how he was in Sonic Rivals (surprisingly, most people are unaware that Rivals came out about a week before Sonic '06). But due to the game being rushed out the door before being completed, he ended up being really slow.
 * A Genesis game based on Sonic Sat AM was pitched by an employee of the Sega Technical Institute.
 * Early versions of Sonic Adventure 2 only had Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman as playable characters (Shadow and Rouge would have always figured into the plot). Fan demand caused Shadow and Rouge to be made playable, and Tails to join the roster. Their late addition isn't too noticeable, but they do receive a slightly lower amount of stages than the first three. There was also to be a branching storyline affected by the player's decisions; an idea revisited in Shadow the Hedgehog.
 * The original concept for the series was not the speedy platform game that it went on to become. Originally, the concept for the game while Sega was coming up with a new mascot to rival Mario was a Rabbit that grabbed objects with its ears. The game Ristar revived the concept and is basically how the gameplay for that game would have been (only with the character being a star that grabbed stuff with his hands rather than a rabbit using his ears). It's also noted that Sonic was chosen over an armadillo (a while after the concept changed to the speedy platformer). When it was narrowed down between just a hedgehog and the armadillo, Sonic was chosen due to his spikey look, while the armadillo eventually went on to become his own character known as Mighty the Armadillo.
 * You could originally go Super Sonic in any level in Sonic Adventure.
 * Speaking of Sonic Adventure, after the cancellation of Sonic X-Treme, Sonic Adventure was announced as a Saturn game, and according to a beta video, it was going to use the same 3D models from Sonic R.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball had its own version of the early Sonic theme before the switch with Sonic 3 and Knuckles. However the music development team found out that Mastao Nakamura had owned the rights and not SEGA as they assumed. Howard Drossin quickly whipped up a new jingle.
 * Early Beta Version shows possible cut scenes or at least stills of Eggman viewing Sonic's progress through the Vego Fortress. The Machine stage also had a different tune.

Super Mario Series

 * Super Mario World for the SNES had several elements that were deleted early on in its production. Originally released as a launch title for the system, the game was a starting point for the design team of Super Mario Bros 3 to adapt their work to a new system (and indeed, the game had the subtitle "Super Mario Bros. 4" up until very late in the development process, as evidenced by television commercials promoting the game). It would have originally taken place in a much smaller world (two islands, which looked to be similar versions of Donut Plains and Chocolate Island), and Lakitu and/or a blue sparrow would appear periodically and fly around Mario (though their purpose is still unknown). There would have been several areas where the player would have to dismount Yoshi (or have the dinosaur disappear); in the final version Mario only dismounts Yoshi before going through a ghost house, fortress, or castle, and Yoshi returns for the next normal level after that. The beta of SMW also had sprites taken from the previous game (screenshots show that you could play as Raccoon Mario).
 * Hell, the game was originally supposed to be released on the NES with a graphics enhancing chip in the cartridge (like Super FX in Star Fox and Super FX 2 in Yoshi's Island), before ultimately moving onto the new system.
 * Super Mario's Wacky Worlds was originally meant to be a CD-i exclusive sequel of sorts to Super Mario World, where Mario would travel through various Earth-based locations. However, it got canceled due to various reasons, and ended up replaced by Hotel Mario, also known as one of the worst games in the series, which ended up in Canon Discontinuity.
 * Keep in mind, though, that Wacky Worlds wasn't coming along well, either. It was an ambitious project, sure, but it was ambitious beyond the capabilities of both the system and the developers. Don't mourn its loss.
 * Mario Clash, a pseudo remake of Mario Bros.. for the Virtual Boy, was originally conceived as a sequel to the Super Mario Land games for the Game Boy.
 * Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was originally going to feature Silver the Hedgehog, Jet the Hawk, Birdo, Kiki, and Donkey Kong as additional characters, as discovered here. In Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, Silver and DK were elevated to playable characters, but Kiki is still MIA..
 * Super Mario 64 was originally going to be made entirely of more linear levels in the style of the Bowser stages.
 * Nintendo Power at one point mentioned a sequel to Super Mario 64 for the ill-fated 64DD that would have had Luigi as a playable character, which didn't happen until the DS version of the original game (and the first time he was playable in an original 3D game was the Super Mario Galaxy games).
 * There were also supposed to be thirty-two worlds rather than the fifteen that were shipped. Players were also supposed to be able to take control of both Mario and Luigi and complete different parts of the castle simultaneously, which obviously means the game was originally a multiplayer game. Yoshi was also supposed to have had a much larger role in the game rather than just hiding on the roof of the castle.
 * Several years later Super Mario Galaxy and especially its sequel are pretty heavy on linear levels. Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy 2 let you ride Yoshi. The Mario and Luigi co-op still hasn't been seen in 3D. Also, Rosalina was originally going to be portrayed as a relative to Peach.
 * Galaxy itself, as revealed by Miyamoto in an interview with Famitsu, was going to have more powerups and features that were left out due to time constraints. They were saved for the sequel.
 * The sequel to Galaxy was supposed to have a more developed story and expand upon Rosalina's history. However, Shigeru Miyamoto, in a rare example of Executive Meddling from him, decided against the idea and wanted the game to focus more on the game play itself as Super Mario Bros. had done. This explains why
 * Going all the way back to the beginning: Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to have the game that would become the original Donkey Kong feature Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oyl (which Nintendo had publishing rights to in Japan). When King Features balked, Miyamoto reworked the characters to include Donkey Kong, Pauline, and "Jumpman".
 * Miyamoto got his chance to make a Popeye game shortly after making Donkey Kong. The Popeye game was a modest arcade hit and got ported to several platforms while "Jumpman" went on to be the core character of the Super Mario mega-franchise.
 * For the original Super Mario Bros., Mario originally was meant to shoot bullets rather than fireballs. Also, Miyamoto originally planned the controls to be A to shoot, B to run, and up on the control pad to jump, but it was decided that being able to run and shoot at the same time was too much of a Game Breaker, so it was changed to put both shooting and running on the B button, meaning the jump could be moved to A.
 * A later Iwata Asks interview gave a few more details about this- apparently Mario could have had a rifle, a beam gun, or a kicking move. There were also plans for Mario to be able to fly on a rocket, and later a cloud (which would later actually happen in the American Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario World respectively.)
 * Retro Studios wanted to do a Mario football game. As the company was formed mainly for games viewing mature audiences (its founder and many employees worked on Turok), Nintendo instead suggested to make a realistic football sim. That game had some development, but got canned as development of Metroid Prime progressed (and that game itself earns its entry below).
 * Luigi's Mansion was originally going to be the first Mario game ever to be rated T. It was going to feature a much darker story with much more horrifying monsters and a much creepier mansion. The biggest change was, if the game was not completed by the conclusion of one in-game day, Luigi would turn into a freakin' zombie!
 * Luigi's Mansion was also planned to be in stereoscopic 3D using an add-on, but when the production of said add-on turned out to be more expensive than the system itself, it was canned. In hindsight, it makes sense that when Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon was announced, it was on the Nintendo 3DS, which has 3D without the need for an add-on.
 * Mahito Yokota originally composed up to 28 musical pieces for Super Mario Galaxy that had Latin beats. Koji Kondo said they were no good, so Yokota eventually came up with the sweeping orchestral pieces that made it into the final game.
 * For Super Mario 3D Land, director Koichi Hayashida suggested fairly early on in development to include the Goomba's Shoe as a power-up. This idea was nixed fairly quickly, though.
 * There were also suggestions of a cockroach-like enemy that can only be squashed by folding up the 3DS.

Others A-K
""We were going to visit two dimensions, but... we ran out of time.""
 * The early character concepts for many members of the Ace Attorney cast were very, very different:
 * Phoenix had bright green hair and Franziska's sense of fashion
 * Edgeworth looked like a young Manfred von Karma and had a pointy Beard of Evil
 * Mia was a big, hulking man, whose design was retooled for the Judge
 * Maya had blue hair and a more urban fashion sense
 * Gumshoe would have been an aloof female detective
 * Kristoph's early designs included a kimono getup that made him look he'd fit right in with the Gotei 13.
 * Additionally, Ace Attorney Investigations was originally concieved as starring Ema Skye rather than Edgeworth.
 * Apollo Justice Ace Attorney was originally intended to have a vastly different plot, more deeply rooted with Apollo's past and no appearances of Phoenix-Arc characters whatsoever, including Phoenix himself. Executive Meddling vetoed this draft and the plot of Hobo-Phoenix's amazing quest to  with a Batman Gambit and the unwitting help of some unimportant 22 years old lawyer was born. Apollo's Character Development and reception suffered from it, to say the least.
 * The collector's edition of Age of Empires III came with a hardcover artbook. The last page of the book shows Roman numerals extending from I to V. The "IV" is underneath a picture of Vietnam-era American soldier and the "V" is underneath what looks like an ODST Expy.
 * Originally, Anachronox was going to be an utterly huge, vast RPG spanning numerous worlds and dimensions, featuring epic Japanese RPG-style combat with Western storytelling and characterisation. The concept was so vast that it was decided to split the game into two installments, with the first ending on a gargantuan cliffhanger of epic proportions. Unfortunately, despite rating high on the scale of awesome, the game did not preorder very well and the development team was canned mere weeks before the game's release date. This angered the devs so much that one went on record encouraging people to pirate the game, while others ended up developing some unofficial patches (such as adding a taxi service to the titular planet, saving on travel time)
 * In American McGee's Alice, early screenshots show the Cheshire cat fighting alongside Alice.
 * The sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, had a lot of content planned that was cut, either due to time or technical difficulty, all of which is revealed within The Art Of Alice: Madness Returns. For example, there was going to be a world revolving around the works of M. C. Escher, where the stage bent and shifted and Alice would walk on the walls. Another world was set on the moon.
 * According to Word of God, Another Century's Episode R was originally planned to include Macross 7, but the producers couldn't figure out how to make it work (since the protagonist is a pacifist who "fights" by using music to inspire his allies and drive off their Emotion Eater enemies). Eventually they scrapped that and decided to include Macross Frontier instead, which meant the game had to be delayed for a year. Likewise, Zeta Gundam's cast was going to consist of Kamille Bidan's Zeta Gundam, Quattro Bajeena's Hyaku-Shiki, and Four Murasame's Psyco Gundam, but they couldn't figure out how to make the latter into a decent playable unit, so Four was cut and replaced with Amuro Ray in his Dijeh.
 * A beta version of the SNES platformer Ardy Lightfoot has Catry, the vulpine boss of the fourth level, sporting a ninja costume (and a slightly more pronounced bustline). On the flip side, her final fate in the bowels of the next level's giant worm is as a half-digested corpse (as opposed to a skeleton in the final Japanese version and just lying prone on the ground in the U.S. version).
 * Army of Two was initially much more ambitious, featuring more complex co-op maneuvers such as throwing clips to your partner and flipping objects for cover, and an emotive AI partner who'd do things like pissing and listening to music in real time. However, constant delays and difficulties during developement lead to EA Montréal severely scaling down these features. While the final game is not an Obvious Beta, it does show signs of a jumpy development with its short length and rushed ending.
 * Asura's Wrath already has a few examples of this. In one interview, it was stated that there originally wasn't going to be a Dodge button at all (Something that just about all action games use) because the developers felt that it wouldn't make sense, as asura is hell bent on revenge, so trying to dodge everything wouldn't help him much. A Dodge button was put in in newer builds for the sake of gameplay, however.
 * Another example, it's shown in earlier trailers that the game was more than likely going to be much Bloodier and Gorier than the final product to compliment how the story is similar to God of War. However, this was when Keiji Inafune was executive producer for the game before he left capcom, and he had also tried to westernize the game this way. When a game is based on Asian Mythology to begin with.
 * The trailers also showed the game as a God Hand-esque beat-'em-up with some QTE's for power-ups and special moves, being able to pick up things like giant stone pillars for weapons, and actual blood spurts.
 * Asura and Yasha's designs underwent some significant changes according to the Preorder Bonus artbook. In fact, one of Asura's older designs was actually used in the final product - as Augus!
 * The main development team for this game is the same team that did the boss fights for Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, thus why many of the boss fights in this game and the overall system of progress for each level seems so similar to the same game, and is also the reason why Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations doesn't have the big boss fights that the previous installment had.
 * Marky Dubois from Backyard Sports was originally going to be named Marky Ramone, a fan of his namesake band. Then they changed him into the farmboy he is today.
 * Baldur's Gate II had many sidequests of the PC's companions that were cutted either for time, constraints, bugs or other reasons. Here's a very brief list:
 * Minsc: his pet hamster Boo gets kidnapped and Minsc's fighting abilities are affected by this. You have to find Boo or you can lie to him and get him another hamster.
 * Viconia: she's been infected by lycantropy and will turn into a werewolf unless you don't find a cure. Also, once you reach the Underdark, she betrays you to the Drow, but later reconsiders.
 * Aerie: she finds a magic scroll that will turn her into a bird. She considers using it rather than live forever without her wings. You can convince her otherwise or she'll leave forever.
 * Haer'Dalis: he and the party gets repeatedly summoned by a unknown mage to fight monsters. Eventually, Haer'Dalis gets pissed and wants to find the summoner.
 * The story of the making of Banjo-Kazooie is littered with tons of this trope, originally the game (“Project Dream” before being renamed for legal reasons) starred a human boy named Edison who fought with a wooden sword against a group of pirates led by Captain Blackeye, it was planned for the SNES originally but had to be moved to the N64 due to the fact that the SNES was in its last days, the character of Edison was changed to a rabbit when Rare felt he was too generic a character, then a dog, and finally Banjo the bear. The story for the game originally was about a giant who kidnapped Banjo's girlfriend Piccolo at a concert the two were watching; the plot to the game originally also had a part where Banjo and Kazooie first met, also Wumba was originally supposed to be the original role for Mumbo. There were also sixteen worlds planned for Banjo-Kazooie such as Fungus Forest and Mount Fire Eyes but were put off or redone for other games due to time constraints, also the in ending when you defeated Gruntilda the last spell she threw at Banjo and Kazooie was originally planned to hit them and turn the two into frogs and you were supposed to play as Tooty to turn them back to normal by collecting enough Mumbo Tokens (which explains why there are more Mumbo Tokens in the game than you need).
 * Word of God has it that the US commercial for Banjo-Kazooie showed brief footage of Fungus Forest.
 * Fungus Forest ended up in Donkey Kong 64, as "Fungi Forest".
 * Also Stop 'N' Swop is the most famous example out of Banjo-Kazooie despite the fact no one knows what its story was but do know that it was canned.
 * Stop 'N' Swop is an interesting example because it was scrapped not because of the limitations of the engine or time constraints. Instead, Stop 'N' Swop was canned because of the hardware. The original plan involved exploiting an eccentricity of the N64's memory where information was held in it for up to four minutes after a cartridge was removed. Accounts of how exactly it would work vary, but the general idea was to literally swap out a Banjo-Tooie Cartridge for a Banjo-Kazooie one when prompted. Unfortunately, the year after Banjo-Kazooie was released Nintendo put out a new model of N64 that cleared its RAM too fast for cartridges to be swapped. Rare briefly considered making Tooie into a follow-through cartridge like Sonic & Knuckles, but ultimately decided to just drop the idea entirely.
 * And the Bottles' Revenge feature in Banjo-Tooie, which seems to be fully functional but just needs hacking to start up.
 * Likewise, the third game in the series was conceived as a platformer before becoming the vehicle building game it is today. It would have been a semi-remake of the first game in the series, but with unexpected twists, such as the mountain in the first level erupting as a volcano. Unfortunately for Rare, most fans would have greatly preferred that kind of game and it probably would have sold much better.
 * The reason they ended up making vehicles is because the levels designs were huge, until you'd need vehicles to move around them in any reasonable time.
 * Bayonetta has a few examples of this: the unlockable art gallery has several conceptual versions of Bayonetta, as well as a design proposal where Bayonetta's costume would subtly change depending on which weapon she had equipped, instead implemented as perfumes you could equip that would do the subtle changes for a few weapons. Rodin was also originally called Mephisto at one point.
 * Michel Ancel has stated before that the game that eventually ended up being released as Beyond Good and Evil is, in fact, Beyond Good and Evil 2 due to the sheer volume of things that were cut and/or changed. Protagonist Jade was originally named Sally, and was much younger-looking--her name changed due to "Sally" having unusual connotations, and her looks changed because she did look too young for a serious woman in her early 20's. The game was supposed to span multiple planets in an intergalactic chase, and the duel partner mechanic (used only at the very end of the game) was supposed to see a lot more use. The sequel, trapped in Development Hell, already seems to be seeing this--after two incredibly realistic-looking trailers, interviews with Ancel suggest it's going back to something closer to its original look, and will be done by a small team as opposed to the big-budget production the first two trailers suggested.
 * A recently-released original game story draft revealed a boatload of missing or altered content. The Governor of Hillys' role was originally a military man named Colonel Garis. The animal-picture-taking sidequest was originally much shorter, and only important for one part of the game. Rufus and Seven (a pair of racers found in the Akuda Bar) had plot significance. The DomZ were a sympathetic alien race, with the truly evil ones being called the Nazh. Most notably, Jade had a third gameplay partner, whose name was Toy'l, and who enabled her to use a psychic shield attack. There were also a number of things that got cut outright, such as Jade having to attend a fancy party to meet Col. Garis, Double H having in-game backstory, an airborne dungeon, and citizens attacking Jade for being a traitor.
 * Bionicle: Legend Of Mata Nui would have been a 3rd person exploration/platform game for PC, based on the popular LEGO brand. Players would have had the opportunity to play as each of the six original Toa characters, meet the islanders personally, and fight their way to confront Makuta himself. And the entire thing would have been canon, standing as the most complete and most official telling of the 2001 storyline. Nearing completion, with loads of promo material having been released, the game was scrapped, and is now seen as a Holy Grail for BIONICLE. Beta copies do exist, which reveal several flaws that might have caused its cancellation. The motion controls are clunky -- there is no transition between standing still and jutting forward with great speed. The fights are either boring (you can defeat bigger foes without having to near them) or annoying (as it's hard to aim at smaller enemies). The environments, while vast and pretty, barely have any challenges or minigames to offer, as the developers were notoriously inexperienced at making these. At the very end of the first level, there is an impassable glitch. And the story presentation was so cheesy, the Story Team would have de-canonized great chunks of it. These factors and the tight deadline are what probably lead to the game never getting finished. LEGO simply states it wasn't up to their standard of quality. Thankfully, fans got to play a truly great on-line game for compensation, which was originally intended to be a mere side-note to the PC game.
 * The original BioShock (series) underwent many, many changes from the time it was pitched to the final product. The original pitch still had the Zeerust idea; they wanted it to take place on land, in a series of interconnected controlled environment chambers created by 1940's Germany. The laboratories would be full of mysteriously dead human bodies, being overrun by strange, insectoid life forms called Gatherers, who collected genetic material and body parts, the Protectors for the Gatherers, and predatory Aggressors. These eventually developed into, respectively, the Little Sisters, Big Daddies and Splicers when the developers decided they wanted a more "human" angle. The concept art book for BioShock (series) shows off some of these life-forms; particularly striking is one insectoid being half-fused into a human body using its arms and legs to walk and fire a pistol. Among other things promised was the ability to alter the controlled environment, such as raising the temperature in an area and giving yourself a plasmid that protected you from heat exhaustion. One of the insectoids nearly made it to the sequel - the concept art shows Splicers turning into things that made G-Virus mutants look cute.
 * The original game had Jack mutate more and more with plasmid use, and would make players decide if they wanted to become a hideous freak like the splicers to survive, or refuse.
 * Irrational released their original pitch for BioShock, which turns out to have been a completely different game. In the original pitch, you play as Carlos Cuello, a “deprogrammer” assigned to infiltrate a mysterious cult based on a remote island and “rescue” a wealthy heiress being held there. The game would also include a much more in-depth weapon creation system, based on the superpower creation system in Freedom Force. Some of the weapons you could make included a triple-barreled automatic shotgun, a silenced railgun, magnetic grenades, a sniper rifle that shoots acid-coated bullets, and a chain lightning taser pistol.
 * BioShock 2 went through several huge shifts in storyline and themes during development. Originally, the Big Sister was intended as a single Big Bad or The Dragon, a former Little Sister incapable of adapting to life on the surface who had returned to Rapture to try and rebuild the city of her childhood. She kidnapped girls to do so, and Tennenbaum returned to try and clean up the mess. This entire plot was more or less scrapped in exchange for a Perspective Flip with a religious collectivist villain in contrast to the first game's atheist Objectivist Big Bad.
 * At one point, the sequel was to have Soviet Russia invade Rapture, with the Soviet troops replacing splicers. (It was even in some demos shown to reviewers.)
 * Borderlands was originally going to have randomly generated vehicles that could be collected like guns, as well as a way to hijack a vehicle from a bandit. The dungeons would also have random elements as well (a cave where a blank wall was previously, for example). However, most of this got scrapped when they decided to change the whole game's art style.
 * Brutal Legend was rushed, leaving the campaign only half as long as it was meant to be. Supposedly there was even a fourth faction, but that never saw the light of day.
 * Capcom Fighting All-Stars was going to be a 3D fighting game featuring several classic Capcom characters such as Ryu, Charlie, Chun-Li, Batsu, Akira, Strider Hiryu, Poison, and Mike Haggar, and original characters such as Ingrid, Rook and D.D. The game wasn't received well with beta testers, and the game was cancelled and turned into the less-than-stellar Capcom Fighting Evolution.
 * And continuing with Capcom, this page also lists all the characters who were cut from Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes. Of that list, only Joe The Condor and Yatterman-2 made the cut for Ultimate All-Stars.
 * Speaking of Ultimate All-Stars, amongst the characters who almost made it but didn't include Phoenix Wright, Speed Racer, and the Samurai Pizza Cats. The sound you just heard was your inner child's heart breaking.
 * Cave Story was originally a very different game, and some weird fragments of this ended up in the finished game.
 * Pixel originally planned for all the guns to have limited ammo until the endgame, making conservation of ammo a major part of the strategy. Then he playtested the infinite-ammo portions, decided they were simply more fun, and implemented that for the whole game.
 * Balrog was originally named Puu, and in addition to being a Recurring Boss, he was also initially the Final Boss. He wasn't a unique creature, but a larger version of a common level enemy. (Apparently Pooh Black, a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere in the final game, is a leftover from this period.)
 * The character Curly Brace was nowhere to be seen--instead, Curly Brace was the name of the player character. This led to a bit of ascended Fanon: In the finished game, it's mentions that the protagonist has something written on his hat, but we never find out what. Artwork from the beta game showed that his name--Curly Brace--was written on his hat, so fanon insisted that, in spite of the name change, his hat still said "Curly Brace" in the finished game. When asked about this, Pixel's response was “Sure Why Not.”
 * The Chrono Cross artbook The Missing Piece has pages upon pages of dropped character designs, most of which much more eclectic or fantastic than the ones that made it to the final game (including some alternative designs for those that did.) Most frustrating of all: explicit mention of how Guile (Alf in the Japanese version) really was supposed to be Magus/Magil, but his backstory was cut out in favor of the 40+ characters and therefore he was reduced to a random traveling sorcerer… giving rise to a million and one Epileptic Trees as to his identity.
 * Clay Fighter 63 1/3 was planned to be ported to the PlayStation under the title of Clayfighter X-treme with all of the characters from Sculptor's Cut, the gameplay from the original 63 1/3 and one of the characters that was removed from the N64 games, a homeless parody of Robocop called, of course, Hobocop. The N64 Clayfighters themselves were a reworking of a canceled Clayfighter 3.
 * The original concept for Comix Zone, Joe Pencil trapped in the Comix Zone, is completely different from the final product apart from having the same basic concept.
 * Command & Conquer was originally conceived as a medieval fantasy RTS. However, Operation Desert Storm was all over the news at the time, Westwood eventually settled for a more contemporary modern-day setting (with a sci-fi element).
 * Conker's Bad Fur Day was originally designed to be a cute, Banjo-Kazooie type platformer named “Conker's Quest.” They then revamped the game, and changed it to “Twelve Tales: Conker 64,” in which it was more of a Spyro the Dragon type platformer. In the end, Rare got aggravated about the complaints of this platformer looking too similar to Banjo-Kazooie and ended up changing the story completely, such as timeskipping Conker from a child to a teenager and avoiding the E rating altogether. Thus, making the Conker's Bad Fur Day we know today.
 * However, younger Conker still appears in Conker's Pocket Tales, a Game Boy Color game that was made for the people waiting for Conker. Conker also still appears in Diddy Kong Racing for N64, with his childish voice (can be heard at 0:27).
 * Another example from Conker's Bad Fur Day is that the game was supposed to end in a much more tragic way. The original ending involved Conker so stricken with grief over his loss of Berri, and being miserable as king, that he would go up to a mirror, sob, put a gun to his head, the screen would go blank, and only a gunshot would be heard. However, Rare wanted to leave it open for a sequel, so they changed it.
 * Worse, in the sequel it was planned that Conker did so horribly as king (he squandered the treasury's worth of moolah for parties, beer and hookers to a point of bankruptcy) that he was thrown in the dungeon and had to escape, ball and chain in tow, back to his throne. However, by this time, the creator of the series was getting less fond of Conker, and more fond of the Squirrels and Tediz war that what originally was Conker's Other Bad Fur Day turned into Live & Uncut (later Live & Reloaded) that focused entirely on the war, with Conker killed as early as the first scene in friendly fire, while an updated remake of BFD was more of an afterthought.
 * Collecting yellow gems in Crash: Twinsanity unlocks 'unseen extras' which apparently feature ideas and concepts that never made it into the final product. The trope is lampshaded by Cortex once:


 * To be specific, the following things were thrown around at various points in Twinsanity's development:
 * The other 2 islands from the first Crash Bandicoot game where you would explore the temples and race on a track run by the Komodo Bros.
 * Crash originally had a dashing flame punch attack that could be used after spinning, and it would have been able to open metal crates and crush doors and whatnot- but, the move was deemed "too powerful" for the game- quite literally, since it was stated that the punch could mess up the game physics.
 * Another Doc Amok level set on the sea floor of a dry ocean that would have also possibly led you to N. Gin's sunken battleship.
 * Coco Bandicoot as a playable character, where her levels would consist of her running around in a Matrix/Tron parody in order to hack open the way for herself and her allies.
 * An encounter with an Evil Coco and Good Cortex in the tenth dimension.
 * A fight with a blue monkey wearing a bowler hat would occur when you entered Crash's garden. The fight would consist of the monkey leaping on you and wrestling you to the ground, during which a gameplay mechanic similar to Rollerbrawl would take place where you had to pin the monkey to the ground long enough for you to escape.
 * You would enter Cortex and Coco's minds using the Psychetron. In the former, you would explore Cortex's mind as Crash fighting manifested freakish copies of Cortex while the music of the stage consisted of Cortex singing a song about himself and his history with Crash. In the latter, you would play as Cortex while fighting pastel horrors.
 * An evil version of Coco, Stripperific outfit and all, was meant to appear on Twinsanity with her brother Evil Crash, but was scrapped.
 * Ripper Roo was originally going to speak intelligibly in Crash Team Racing, but the developers thought it would fit his personality better to simply be The Unintelligible. The unused audio can still be found on the game disc.
 * In 1995, a first-person sandbox PC game called Damocles was supposed to come out. Its goal would have been to explore a solar system in order to save a planet from a collision with a comet. The solar system would have been completely explorable; the players would have had the freedom to fly in space, land and move freely on any planet, enter any building, explore any room, pick up any object, blow up any building and even destroy any planet they wanted. Psygnosis canceled the game when it was practically complete.
 * Dark Sector was initially announced in 2001 as a massively multiplayer Spiritual Successor to Unreal Tournament. No words were spoken on this game until in 2004, when the game turned into Dead Space. Then in 2006 it was overhauled into biologically themed Gears of War's sister game with a glaive that isn't actually a glaive that finally hit the consoles in 2008.
 * During Darkstalkers initial design stage, Morrigan was supposed to be a cute and clumsy vampire girl while Felicia was supposed to be a hot, aggressive, and seductive catwoman. A few character redesigns later, Morrigan was turned into the red-hot Succubus that everyone knows and loves, so Felicia was severely toned down to fill the “cute” character spot. Traces of this can still be seen in the first game, with Morrigan sporting a much less slutty artwork w/o her habitual seductive lips, while Felicia had much more visible lips instead of her habitual fanged halfmoon smile, and her aspect in general was much more mature and way less of her ditzy bubblehead self as in the next games. This can also be seen in their stage backgrounds: Morrigan's is a pastel-colored castle with fireworks going off in the background (rather unfitting of the Strongest Demon in the Underworld, but it might work for a little girl...), while Felicia's basically implied that she was a Vegas showgirl.
 * Lilith is roughly what Morrigan was originally meant to be. Also, she was going to be her half-angel sister.
 * Lilith's design also was rumored to perhaps at one point be male or a hermaphrodite before she became said half-angel sister. During her incarnation as an angel, she looked exactly like Morrigan except possibly more "pure", and she was the older sister of the two who was mercilessly teased by Morrigan. Her design as an angel was retooled into the different succubus we know and love, because at the time there were too many angelic characters in other fighting games (such as Angel in Tekken 2 and Uranus in Toshinden 2).
 * Although it is common knowledge that Arc System Works was formed of ex-Darkstalkers staffers who jumped ship from Capcom after the release of Vampire Savior, it is less known that many of Guilty Gear's characters are ripped directly from aborted ideas for Darkstalker characters: Concept arts for Victor show a character highly reminiscent of Potemkin, early plot treatments for Lord Raptor (in which he was a dead soldier with Arm Blades, and later a Zombie Pirate with a giant hook in his chest that shot tentacles at opponents) created three characters: Chipp, May, and Zato-1. Pyron at one point was going to be an extraterrestrial Mad Scientist; the concept design is literally Faust with a giant plume of flame emanating from his head.
 * The art book for Dead Rising 2 and some early previews show that the game would've taken place in one large, Western-themed casino with a steamboat in the side (source)(or perhaps that was one of the several casino/hotels, along with a different, Luxor-like Yucatan, seen in some pictures provided), that Fortune City would be an actual city with a large entertainment-like area similar to the final game's Fortune City and near a Phenotrans (then called Biotrans) facility (source), overall more ambitious and large scale concepts for the area and casinos (source) (source) (source), and a different design for the entrance to the bar in the Yucatan.
 * Originally, Devil May Cry was a set of combat mechanics for Resident Evil 4, which were canned because they were too action-oriented. But then it spun off into its own series, and even that had its changes, such as Dante being armed with a submachine gun, not wearing a longcoat, fighting Griffon in place of Phantom for the first battle, and Devil Triggering into Alastor in the cutscene right before said battle. The Devil Trigger scene was moved to the end and used for the Sparda form instead.
 * According to some Dummied Out code in Deus Ex, it seems like it would have been possible to
 * According to the Eidos Montreal, the Montreal level of Deus Ex Human Revolution was initially meant to be a hub city much like Detroit with vendors and subquests. Buildings were designed and developers have said in interviews that the unique architecture of the city gave a look and feel unseen in any game so far, especially the housing areas built up of triplexes with wrought-iron spiral staircases.
 * The beginning level would had been Adam breaking into Sarif industries with Megan as Mission Control. The fact that you were breaking into Sarif and not into a competitor industry would not be revealed until the end of the mission. The end would also have a conversation boss fight with Megan, that would give detail about their failed relationship.
 * Donkey Kong Country Returns was intended to have underwater levels, but they were cut out for being too slow and hard to control in. Also, the bonus pictures reveal, among other things,.
 * Diddy Kong was originally Rare's updated version of Donkey Kong Jr. However the people at Nintendo felt he looked too different from the character so they were told to have the character be someone entirely new.
 * The original concept of Doom was reportedly very different, including gameplay that would be more story and puzzle based, making it more like a first person Adventure Game. Screenshots and scripts still exist of these early versions (including such inventory items as “Commander's Hand” and “Ham Sandwich”) and early beta versions released on the internet show it as a much slower and less action-packed game. Some have even argued that when ID Software rebooted the storyline of the original game in Doom 3, they were in fact just presenting a game that was closer to this original conception.
 * After John Carmack designed the Doom 1 engine, ID Software wanted to use it to adapt the movie 'Aliens'. They decided against this rather quickly fearing Executive Meddling in their creative process.
 * Similarly, early versions of Quake were based around it being a very different hack-and-slash RPG set in Aztec temples (eventually changed to medieval European castles), starring a barbarian demigod named Quake who beats people up with his giant hammer. It was an eleventh hour decision to abandon this concept and turn it into a Doom-like run-and-gun shooter, which is why the finished game has a muddled and inconsequential plot that tries to explain why you're running around medieval castles wielding a hand-held rocket launcher.
 * Funnily enough, John Romero has admitted that Darksiders pretty much resembles Quake's initial concept.
 * Quake III Arena began life as an idea for a single player game called Trinity, which was abandoned very early in the game design process in favour of a game focusing more on the deathmatch experience and online gaming.
 * And Wolfenstein 3D started as a much more Metal Gear Solid-style stealth combat game, with features like switching uniforms with guards, dragging bodies to avoid discovery, and using the knife to silently attack enemies instead of alerting them with gunfire. The game's pace was slow because of all this complexity, so they dropped it to speed up the game, in doing so basically invented the frantic first person shooter gameplay style we all know and love.
 * The original Double Dragon was conceived as a sequel to the original Nekketsu Koha Kunio-kun (aka Renegade). It was retooled as a stand-alone game when the developers felt that they didn't want to work on a separate version of the same game for the overseas market like they did with Renegade.
 * The arcade version of Double Dragon II: The Revenge was originally planned as an upgrade kit for the original game that would've changed the graphics for the enemy characters and backgrounds. However, the developers wanted to add even more new features such as new moves, boss characters and more music, which wouldn't had been possible to add had the game been released as an upgrade kit, which required the game to be remade on a different hardware. This is why Double Dragon II reuses assets from the first game, since it was supposed to be an upgraded version to begin with.
 * Super Double Dragon was supposed to have an actual plot. The Big Bad Duke would've been revealed to be Billy and Jimmy's childhood friend and True Final Boss would've been a fight with Duke's shadow.
 * In Dragon Age: Origins, it was originally intended that you were able to recruit Jowan the Blood Mage after finishing the Redcliffe chain of quests by invoking the Right of Conscription upon him, though time constraints led to this being scrapped. His fate in the game is either execution, being sent back to the Circle and into the hands of the Templars, or you let him escape early on.
 * Plans to amend a few cases of Gameplay and Story Segregation were scrapped: Lyrium addiction (prominent among Templar and mage characters) was supposed to be implemented as a gameplay mechanic, manifesting itself in diminishing returns of Lyrium Potions; the Darkspawn taint (said to affect all living beings who contact the Darkspawn, including your party who fight them all the time) would have forced you to make your entire party Gray Wardens by the endgame. The Joining was only implemented in Awakening and even there, it was optional.
 * The game was also going to include human commoner and human barbarian origins, as well.
 * In Dragon Age II, the qunari mage Ketojan was originally planned as a party member.
 * Duke Nukem Forever was initially going to be a sidescroller called "Duke 4Eva", with Dr. Proton as the main antagonist. The plot would've involved Duke trying to stop Proton from cutting the state of California off from the rest of the country, battling Protonite cyborgs and other enemies on his way to a final clash with Proton himself. The graphics engine eventually got reused for "Alien Rampage", and the name, obviously, was recycled.
 * Proton was also going to be the main baddie of the DNF seen in the EPIC E3 2001 trailer; that version of DNF would've had Proton trying to take over the world by using technology stolen from Area 51. Though that version of the game was scrapped, the story elements were reused in the DNF DLC "The Doctor Who Cloned Me", along with another aborted subplot about evil Duke clones.
 * One of the saddest DNF "What Could Have Been" cases is Bombshell, Duke's female sidekick; in most iterations of the game before its 2011 release, she was set to be an integral part of the story. When Gearbox Software got their hands on DNF, Bombshell was off-limits (3D Realms still owns her---their intent was to put her in a spin-off game after DNF's release), necessitating the use of Dylan as Duke's wingman.
 * Going back even further than DNF, the original "Duke Nukem" game was going to be called "Metal Force", and may or may not have had Duke as part of a team working to take down Dr. Proton.
 * The Elder Scrolls: Arena was originally to be, about, well, arenas and gladiators. Then the developers put it into their home-brew Dungeons & Dragons setting and fell in love with the Wide Open Sandbox gameplay. The result was the epic role-playing series The Elder Scrolls.
 * Arena was left in the title because promotional materials had already been made using that name so it was kept.
 * The main characters of Elite Beat Agents were originally going to be based off the Village people and were originally called the Disco Rangers. Derek also wasn't the same person until much later.
 * There's also some What Could Have Been in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, it's Japanese predecessor. There was originally one level planned in this prototype where you have to save a puppy from an incoming train, but it was scrapped when they didn't think about how the scenario would end if you failed. The song was later recycled into Sachiko's level.
 * The setting for Epic Mickey is an In-Universe example of might-have-beens. As for meta examples:
 * First, the strategy to defeat the Clock Tower using paint was different; rather than simply painting his face in, it would swing open after the arms brought you to its face, revealing a record player that was playing the tune "It's a Small World" over and over; smashing it would end the music and restore the Clock Tower's sanity. This would also explain the "Stop the Music" pin.
 * Second, the Mad Doctor was originally wearing his black cloak from the short of the same name during the opening cinematic. However, developers realized that fans would confuse him for the original Phantom Blot, and the cloak was discarded.
 * The biggest instance of all is the fact that originally, the Karma Meter for the game would alter Mickey's appearance as you used Paint or Thinner more, or balanced both. This was changed as Scrapper Mickey (who looked more ratlike and with a nasty grin), who was the result of using Thinner a lot more, was too drastic-looking for fans of Mickey Mouse.
 * Not to mention that a level based on Alice's Curious Labyrinth (from Disneyland Paris) was scrapped due to the Tim Burton film, Alice in Wonderland, coming out at the time.
 * Originally, the final boss of the game was The Storm Blot. This was basically Oswald as the Shadow Blot after Oswald sided with the Blot to get revenge on Mickey Mouse. This results in a rather twisted and crazier take on the Lucky Rabbit, especially when pictures show that he seems to be using other Disney characters as sources of power, including the Genie, Dopey, Clarabelle Cow, and Horace Horsecollar. Another picture shows that the Storm Blot spawns Spatters, similar to the Shadow Blot. This suggests that during the game's development, the team decided to make Oswald more of a good guy than a villain, thus having the Shadow Blot take his place.
 * Eternal Darkness was originally planned to be an Nintendo64 game, but promoted to the Game Cube, which allowed it to go from prerendered backdrops to realtime ones while not sacrificing any detail. Also, a few characters who were planned to be playable were relegated to NPC roles in other characters' stories, notably the temple guard in Ellia's and the templar knight in the cutscene before Roberto's.
 * Supposedly, the person first considered for the role of Fallout 3's President John Henry Eden was none other than Bill Clinton.
 * Fallout: Van Buren could have lived even after Black Isle died. Had they not been outbid by Bethesda, Fallout 3 would have been made by none other than Black Isle alumni developers Troika Games, creators of Arcanum and Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.
 * Several ideas from Van Buren would eventually be implemented in Fallout: New Vegas.
 * Final Fight Streetwise was originally intended to have Sodom and Poison appear. They were abandoned later in development.
 * Shouzou Kaga's original plans for Fire Emblem: Geneaology of the Holy War. Among them were the possibility of all the female characters surviving or being revived by the power of Forsety, the game being split into three parts (part 3 would be the children reuniting with their parents), and Yurius surviving and being returned to his original self by The Power of Love.
 * Freedom Fighters. Despite a clear ending with a sequel clearly brought up, and even an announcement of a sequel, developer Io never really gained any ground.
 * Freedom Force originally was planned as a series where each game would be a different decade of comics history, leading up to the present. Instead they made a time-traveling second game with a few golden age heroes and one later-styled character with death powers, and then they hit it big with BioShock (series) with no indication they'll ever go back to the IP.
 * Free Space had a couple of cutscenes dropped from the final product, whose storyboards can still be found in the developers' notes, including a truly epic depiction of the Lucifer's attack on Tombaugh Station, which would have included Shivans leaping out of their ships (without spacesuits) to board it. One fan actually went ahead and animated another cutscene himself, that being the devastation of Vasuda Prime. Planet-size spaceships were also mentioned as being an idea for the unmade third game.
 * According to this article, the Game Boy Advance was to be built for Internet connections.
 * God of War was to have a second disk featuring rejected designs for a few monsters and Kratos, as well as a level cut because they couldn't get it to work right.
 * It also has several sequel hook cinematics which (so far) seem to have been tossed out, including one where the plot of the second game was apparently going to focus on Kratos' brother who grew up in Hades due to having been left for dead as a baby (the standard Spartan procedure for babies deemed "weak" by the elders) and his quest for revenge.
 * As well as a possible modern-day version, in which the US Military discovers a Titan's corpse. However, the recent God of War Collection for Play Station 3 has a trophy for watching the cinematic that talks about Kratos' brother, so perhaps they haven't forgotten about it.
 * God of War: Ghost of Sparta for the PSP has Kratos' Start of Darkness and his brother Deimos as a major part of the story.
 * Scratch that. The game had a boss fight against his brother, but it was the other one he hadn't killed by that point.
 * The level cut was probably a good thing, as the demo shown and the discussion had Scrappy Level written all over it.
 * For those that don't know, the cut level in question had Kratos riding a platform and trying to escape a sandstorm in a desert environment. Let that sink in for a second. Kratos, running away from a sandstorm.
 * An interview with GamePro had the director of God of War III reveal how the directors of GOW I and II (David Jaffe and Cory Balrog respectively) would have ended the franchise. The latter would have Kratos become Death while the former would have Kratos set his sights on the Norse pantheon after slaughtering the Greek one.
 * Another plot element cut from the first game was a puppy for Kratos to act as a literal Morality Pet, eventually turning into a massive Cerberus-like beast and forcing Kratos to Shoot the Dog. They decided it was just too cruel to put it in.
 * Two more elements cut from the third game: an expanded final battle where, and a puzzle involving Ixion, who was tied to a wheel in Hades for trying to kidnap Hera. According to Stig Asmusen, these elements were removed so the team could focus on making the rest of the game fuller and more epic.
 * GoldenEye 64 went through several different ideas that were scrapped prior to its release. Chief among these were its transfer from the SNES (where it was first announced for) to the Nintendo 64. Aside from a host of Dummied Out mission objectives and modes, the game was originally intended to be an on-rails shooter (in the style of Virtua Cop), and several levels (like Frigate and Silo) were designed with this style in mind - which also explains why they are so linear. Remnants of a planned "Casino" level also exist in the game code (with items like sticky cameras, playing cards and chips), suggesting that there were plans to have a casino-themed stealth level in the game.
 * There was also a planned HD port of the game for the Xbox 360. The only problem was that Microsoft, Activision and Nintendo couldn't work out the licensing rights for the game. The worst part, though? The port was already finished!
 * There was also a plan for a Xbox remake that was canned.
 * Golden Sun: Dark Dawn has the Mercury Lighthouse visible on the world map but it cannot be reached. What makes this stranger is the Venus Lighthouse is also on the world map but the player can never see it unless they use a walk through walls code to reach it. It could have been possible that there would be more areas for the player to explore near the Venus Lighthouse but was quietly scrapped with little explanation.
 * Both Golden Sun games on the GBA were supposed to be one complete game instead of two parts, but due to cartridge space limits, the story of the game had to be told over two games.
 * One of the designers of Gradius V had the idea of having your ship have multiple missile, double, and laser types, which you would cycle through by selecting the respective slot multiple times.
 * At one point, the original Grand Theft Auto was conceived as a Sim-esque open sandbox world that had the player interacting with dinosaurs that walk around the streets of a city. Later on in development, the game was called "Race N' Chase", and allowed players to take the role of a good guy catching criminals.
 * The Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas mission "Saint Mark's Bistro" was originally going to have the player chase the target through the streets of Portland Island.
 * Grand Theft Auto IV was originally supposed to have areas based on upstate New York and Long Island. This was scrapped early in development, though references to an area called "the Carraways" (presumably based on the Hamptons) still exist in the final product and in the expansion packs.
 * A video game based off Gremlins (and not the NES game) was pitched at one point. It recreates the town havoc scene in the first movie, and you play Gizmo as you set up traps to stop the other Gremlins. It was turned down, but the guy who pitched it put some previews of what it could've been like.
 * Guild Wars had a whole bunch of them. A look through the artbooks reveals all sorts of crazy and/or awesome stuff (a personal favorite is a monster that's 3 monkeys riding a giant lizard). More obvious is the 4th campaign, Guild Wars: Utopia, which was scrapped in favor of making Guild Wars 2. Some of the Utopia concepts (the ones already finished, presumably) did get incorporated into Eye Of The North, particularly in the Tarnished Coast area (the warrior's Silver Eagle armor comes directly from a piece of Utopia concept art, and was basically already complete when Utopia was canceled and thrown into Eot N, which is why it's the only armor in the game only one profession has.)
 * The book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar reveals a lot of ideas that were removed from either Half-Life or its sequel. Gordon Freeman went through a number of designs (despite never being seen anywhere but on the boxart), including one with a large beard and green HEV suit that was nicknamed "Ivan the Space Biker" by the production staff. Several major gameplay elements such as AI allies and the gunships targeting the player's rockets were created by accident.
 * Along with the usual array of scrapped monsters and level designs, various characters were taken out or combined into one. Alyx Vance was originally the daughter of a military leader, Captain Vance. When the area he appeared in, the Air Exchange, was cut, so too was the character and Alyx became Eli's daughter. Just a few weeks before the announcement of the game, Alyx was a generic videogame heroine, with "a two-toned bodysuit with knee-high boots" (instead she became a generic videogame heroine in low cut acid-washed jeans) and Dr Breen spent much of the development cycle half-transformed into a Combine alien.
 * Compare the final attack on White Forest in the original to the retail battle.
 * Half-Life 2 is a rather obvious example of this, as the leaked beta contains much of the concepts unfinished or not, everything from the unfinished version of Eli talking about portal storms as being sentient beings to Captain Vance and the remnants of earths forces fighting the Combine, quite a bit of the storyline for better or worse was streamlined, merged, or cut out entirely
 * Here's a bizarre-sounding one: Robin Williams (yes, that Robin Williams) wanted to play the Vortigaunts in Half-Life 2. Apparently Williams was quite the PC gamer. The role went to Lou Gossett, Jr. instead.
 * In the original plot for Halo: Combat Evolved, Cortana was to go mad with power and try to use Halo to take over the galaxy. Thank God this never happened.
 * The changes were much bigger than that. Halo started development internally as a real time strategy game (essentially Myth Recycled ,) but by the time it was publicly announced, it had become a third-person shooter with vast and seamless open environments, a Wide Open Sandbox campaign set in a persistent world, and a far stronger emphasis on vehicle combat and Co-Op Multiplayer with dozens of players; also, it was to be a simultaneous Mac and Windows release. Rumors at the time said its final form was vastly downgraded from the ambitious original design because the Xbox simply could not handle it.
 * However, when you consider that Halo was originally announced for the PC, PS2 & Dreamcast in it's First person form, back when Bungie was working with Rockstar when they made Oni, those rumor probably holds little to no weight.
 * It was also stated, by Bungie, that the game was originally going to contain twenty-five missions rather than the ten that were shipped. One has to wonder why the Halo series as a whole was cut down so much.
 * Of course, the RTS concept was resurrected for Halo Wars.
 * Halo 2. was going to feature the Covenant Ship (there wasn't supposed to be a bomb aboard the Cairo, Master Chief was originally going to jump off the Cairo, obliterate all the Covenant inside the their Capital ship and a new Covenant species which would have served as a boss battle, then take control of a Wraith and destroy the core of the ship), Sentinal Wall (mentioned in the Making of Halo 2), and the final few levels at the end of the game that would have gotten the Master Chief through Truth's ship and back on Earth. The player was also supposed to be able to control the drop pods in the beginning of Delta Halo, and there was supposed to be a large battle between the Master Chief and the hundreds of recently reanimated Arbiter's in High Charity (Including several new Flood forms that were ultimately cut.) Oh, and to top it all off, Bungie confessed that Halo 2 and 3 were supposed to be one game, which makes plausible explanation as to why Halo 3 was so short. Imagine what Halo 2 could have been if Bungie hadn't messed up during development (they basically wasted half of their allotted time creating a graphics and game engine that could never have been implemented.)
 * Oh, and the first level of the game was to have been a massive Zero G area with warthogs and several different areas which would have functioned as a way to get Master Chief off of the Cairo.
 * Halo 3. Guardian Level. Ripping out its eye and killing it with it. Yes, The Guardians, Really Killed By Us.
 * Speaking of Bungie, their previous game Oni had a networked multiplayer mode, publicly playable at several expos, until it was cut just before release due to its poor latency tolerance. Such a shame that games with LAN-only MP can't succeed in the internet age. Among numerous other cuts was a Puzzle Boss called the Iron Demon.
 * Rika from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni was originally supposed to be older and taller than the teenage Mion, and Tall Dark and Bishojo, but was later changed into being around nine years old. The series also began from a play Ryukishi wrote called Hinamizawa Bus Stop, before being adapted and expanded upon in the visual novels.
 * While the trailer for Hitman: Blood Money shows many of the missions that do appear in the final game, it does portray Mark Parchezzi III as if he was meant to be your nemesis for the entire game. Instead he hardly appears and isn't much of a threat even in the final mission, and his group “The Franchise” isn't mentioned until the game is nearly over as well. It's unknown if this is simply a case of Trailers Always Lie or if the game was rushed out the door, but the clumsy way the storyline between the mostly disconnected missions is told lends some credence to the later.
 * Homeworld 2 was originally going to be an epic plot spanning several generations, involving massive ambiguity over which side was "correct". The Vaygr were originally supposed to have sympathetic motivations involving oppression by the Hiigaran empire, and its exploiting its control over the hyperlanes.
 * Iji was initially planned to be more stealth-based. Currently, the only stealth elements are the spotting and patrol mechanic, and cracking enemies. Also, Iji would have found the bodies of Mia and Ron..
 * Inherit The Earth: Quest For The Orb. Word of God confirms: “Our biggest conflict was simple: the developers wanted something that was rather adult in nature. The publishers saw animals and equated it with children, and so forced us at every turn to cater to the 8-12 range, up to and including removing any death scenes to keep a Children's Rating.” And so, some of the deepest and most interesting foreshadowings never got anywhere…
 * The game Killer7 was originally supposed to have an entire other section in which you played an FBI agent named Jacob while he attempted to track down the cause of Heaven Smiles, and ultimately discovered that.
 * There were plans for making a video game of Kimba the White Lion for the NES and later the Nintendo 64 and the game wasn't meant to get past Japan's borders, but both attempts ended up as Vaporware.
 * The King of Fighters has a few of these:
 * The protagonist was going to be a character called Syo Kirishima until the design settled on Kyo Kusanagi. Still, Syo was added as a special striker in KoF2000, and as an alternate outfit for Kyo in Maximum Impact 2.
 * Another Iori, a concept for a new Iori costume featuring him wearing a black leather trenchcoat and red bell bottom pants, was cut early from Ko F 2000. He was eventually made into his own MUGEN character. He's badass because he can access his Orochi mode at will.
 * Rugal's original concept was to copy special moves during a fight, but due to memory limitations SNK opted to give him moves from two established Fatal Fury bosses, Geese's Reppuken and Krauser's Kaiser Wave.
 * Artbooks for some of the series sometimes display possible alternate looks for characters, but there's also a spite sheet of possible looks for the characters that debuted in KoF99 - notable because one shows Bao could have been a girl.
 * Adel was supposed to be a girl originally, which is why his full name is Adelheid (“Heidi.”)
 * The original game was pitched as a beat'em up called Survivor.
 * One could write a whole page about the original plans for KOF2001. Word of God says that the game was originally meant to be an epic installment similar to 97, to wrap up the NESTS storyline. The game was said to return to the 3 vs 3 format, with a hero team consisting of K', Kula and Krizalid, who inexplicably returned. A sub boss team similar to 97's Orochi team was apparently planned, consisting of Ron, a cloned version of Krizalid, and Zero before fighting Father NESTS, the final boss. But then Eolith happened, and we got K' on his old team, Kula lumped in with Foxy and two of Eolith's creations, and Krizaild totally removed, though his voice clips remain in the game's files. Ron and the clone Krizalid became strikers for Zero, and NESTS was killed off in the cutscenes to make room for Eolith's new boss, Igniz. The validity of all this information is debated, but 2001 went on to become possibly the least popular game in the entire series, or at least the canon games. What could have been indeed…
 * The King of Fighters XIII has a few of these. Chang, Malin, Momoko, and Oswald intended to be in the game. Chang became part of the background in the India stage. The other three are still MIA. Perhaps they will be in the eventual console release of KOF 13.
 * Many King's Quest fans feel that Mask of Eternity was an unsatisfactory conclusion to the series, both because of its radical Genre Shift and the fact that it had little to nothing to do with the rest of the series. The end product turned out to be radically different from original designs. The main character would have been a statue that had come to life rather than a village tanner, some characters (such as the swamp witch) had much larger or entirely different roles, and the game world was a lot lighter and cheerier, matching the rest of the series more than the darker final product. And one can only imagine what could have happened if the game had stayed as a lighthearted point and click adventure like the rest of the series rather than the Darker and Edgier hack and slash RPG it ended up as.
 * Kingdom Hearts: According to Tetsuya Nomura in a Japan-only book, Axel was originally supposed to die in the Prologue of Kingdom Hearts II. However, his popularity with both fans and the staff caused him to stick around for most of the game and beyond.
 * Additionally, he stated that his original idea for a weapon that became the Keyblade didn't start as a key, but something more like a chainsaw, but that got an Executive Veto. Also, at the same time that weapon design was there, Sora was originally designed as a lion-type character, reminiscent of Zidane.
 * Some other ideas were that worlds like the Pride Lands were originally supposed to appear in the first game but they didn't have the tech to make it, some unused sprites for 358/2 Days show that a Pinocchio world had been planned, but removed for unknown reasons, and Birth By Sleep has remnants of a world based on The Jungle Book Dummied Out.
 * Also, the Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix Ultimania (Japanese guidebook), shows that Nomura originally planned for the final boss fights to be alot different than how they turned out: Xemnas, after absorbing power from Kingdom Hearts, was to meld into a giant Transformer-esque creature and, upon defeat, transform into a more distorted version. This idea was nixed and instead we got the dragon-fortress/armored Xemnas and black-and-white coat Xemnas battles.
 * Final Fantasy characters like Rikku and Vincent were also supposed to be in the first game (the former taking Yuffie's role, and the latter taking Cloud's, explaining the alterations to Yuffie and Cloud's costumes in the first game), along with Final Fantasy summons like Bahamut. Also, Irvine was also set to appear, but was replaced by Wakka.
 * Older trailers of the first game showed many things that didn't get into the final release. For example, Riku having a scene at the top of Big Ben in Neverland, Kairi having a larger role at the end of Hollow Bastion, and Donald and Goofy using their classic cartoon outfits in battle, though those outfits eventually did show up in the game's epilogue.
 * It seems that Riku's Big Ben scene is canon, despite not being seen in the first game. Both coded and the secret ending of the Final Mix version of Birth By Sleep feature glimpses of it.
 * Before Sora, either Donald Duck or Mickey was going to be the main protagonist; but since there was a lot of disagreement between who it would be, they created Sora.
 * Marluxia of Organization XIII was going to be female, but the writers decided to make the character male when they developed the treachery plotline along with Larxene, and realized that the idea of two women trying to take over an organization that's dominated by men only to fall flat on their faces wouldn't go over too well. The gender change definition explains his appearance.
 * Kingpin: Life of Crime was originally meant to be an innovative game about managing a criminal gang and fighting turf wars against enemy gangs, all set in 3D. Publisher Interplay, however, wanted a simple shooter, so what the gaming scene got was a fairly normal FPS with innovative visuals but boring story (at least in the later levels). Some of the chapters were obviously rushed, too, especially the train yard and the last boss fight.
 * Mr. American, Armstrong, and Puripuriman were among the original 7 Devil Choujin in Kinnikuman. They were nixed in favor of Mr. Khamen, The Mountain and Stecasse King. Since Matayan is such a dedicated fan of Kinnikuman, he gave Puripuriman voice samples from Ryotaro Okiayu and a complete moveset in Kinnikuman: Muscle Fight.
 * Originally, Knights of the Old Republic II had an intricate and complex finale which resolved all the outstanding storylines and gave all the NPCs and their subplots decent closure. Thanks to LucasArts rushing the game out before Christmas, most of this stuff was cut and the game's ending doesn't entirely make much sense any more. (KOTOR 2 is the king of this trope)
 * The Knights of the Old Republic games in general are rife with What Could Have Been; in addition to the material left out of the ending, KotOR II was also supposed to include a planet of droids and the HK-50 factory, the latter of which would have been played through as HK-47. The first game also had some content cut out of it, at least part of which can be restored in mods, such as an alternate ending for the Dark Side female Player Character.
 * KotOR II also includes a Lampshade Hanging regarding another what-could-have-been; with the right conditions met, Atton Rand breaks the fourth wall to comment that he was originally intended to be the protagonist of Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy before that character was named Jaden Korr instead.
 * The first KOTOR game had its cut material as well - namely the star map on the volcanic planet of Sleheyron. The planet was cut early on in the production schedule, so most of the content relating to it was removed from the game files. The character of Yuthura Ban was given a backstory with the planet in reference to the cut material.
 * Ubisoft's I Am Alive game was originally supposed to be a survival game that takes place six days after an earthquake in Chicago. The second premise trailer then changes the backstory to a Darker and Edgier mood and more believable survival environment where it strongly resembles to The Road.

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Maxis had two groups of people that wanted to shape Spore: those who wanted it to be scientific, and those who wanted it to be "accessible". According to Will Wright himself, the game had to be retooled, because the first group was winning, and it wasn't fun at all.
 * La-Mulana originally had more types of enemies, but were scrapped because they would've made the game even harder than it already was. One of the developers, duplex, jokes in his Developer's Room that he'll put them in another Castlevania-type game.
 * Early promotional material for The Last Remnant indicated that both Rush and The Conqueror would be fully playable characters, with each having their own story scenario. Rush was designed to appeal to eastern RPG fans, while the Conqueror was designed with western RPG fans in mind.
 * There was going to be another Legacy of Kain game, finally tying up all the loose ends. Unfortunately: 1. The story writer left Crystal Dynamics. 2. The person she left in charge died before someone else could be chosen. 3. Crystal Dynamics was given the Tomb Raider series.
 * The first LoK sequel, Soul Reaver, was originally intended to have a definitive conclusion, rather than a cliffhanger. This is evident in a number of sound files on the disc of the PlayStation version of the game relating to an actual death of Kain followed by the apparent use of a giant cathedral organ to destroy all of the remaining vampires in Nosgoth. Either because of obvious opportunity, or because of a lack of time to develop the planned endgame, the "final battle" with Kain instead ends with “To Be Continued,” allowing for a significant expansion (with some eventual retconning) of the series mythology.
 * Aside from the ending, many gameplay elements in Soul Reaver had to be cut very late in development: The Human Citadel would have housed a cult of vampire-worshippers, with their priestess serving as an optional boss encounter, and many glyphs and alternate Reaver forms were Dummied Out, including the Dark Reaver and Purified Reaver.
 * The Legendary Starfy series was supposed to start on the Game Boy Color however the Game Boy Advance was to be released the following year so they changed it to that console.
 * Lego Island was, at first, intended to be a 6-game series, with other games exploring other islands in the Phanta Sea. Before long, all of them were scrapped. This was because LEGO fired the development team a day before the game was released. This resulted in several other things being pointed out in the game but not actually possible, most famously remodeling buildings.
 * LEGO Island 2 was extremely rushed and became an Obvious Beta. It was intended to be twice as what we actually got.
 * LEGO Star Wars was originally supposed to have a Wheelbike chase in Episode 3, a level for Zam Wessel, but they were cut due to not being to able properly program them. Zam finally made her LEGO Star Wars debut in The Complete Saga, but the Wheelbike chase never resurfaced, probably not to throw off the "one-vehicle level" balance.
 * When they went out of business, Looking Glass Studios -- makers of Thief, Ultima Underworld, the original System Shock, and many other such games -- was working on a game called Deep Cover, a spy-themed stealth thriller game spanning the length of the cold war.
 * Another sandbox PC game called Loose Cannon, developed by Sinister Games, was supposed to come out in 2002. The main character in the game would have had the freedom to explore a detailed city, take missions and drive vehicles. Sounds familiar? This game was canned too.
 * According to The Other Wiki, Magical Doropie was originally planned as a The Wonderful Wizard of Oz video game (this is probably why Doropie/Francesca vaguely resembles Glinda on the American box, along with the basic plot of a young woman being summoned to fight an evil witch.) There were also more plans with the spells to make them more useful, as well as plans for a sequel.
 * The Maverick Hunter X series was supposed to be Inafune's reimagining of the Mega Man X series, with updated graphics, voice-acting, animated cutscenes, and better focus on plot and characterization. Unfortunately, low sales of the first MHX game has scrapped the series.
 * This had a secondary effect. When the Mega Man X Collection was first announced, there were plans to add enhancements and redub the later games. However, the idea was scrapped when the developers decided to simply put those features into the Maverick Hunter X remakes. Thus players received a collection of straight ports retaining the same faults as the originals, and the proposed series was, as mentioned above, canceled. No one won.
 * On that note, Mega Man X falls into this too. Keiji Inafune, the producer of the majority of the Mega Man series, originally created Zero as the main protagonist of the game; however, he eventually decided that Zero looked too different from the original Mega Man to be easily sympathized with by long-time Mega Man fans, so he turned Zero into X's somewhat cooler friend and mentor, delegating the authority of creating the true main character to someone else. Also, Zero was also originally a girl until late in the game's production, explaining all the Viewer Gender Confusion.
 * After X5, Inafune intended the series to end so he could begin with the Zero series, but Capcom executives released X6 without his input just so they could continue to cash in. And that is the reason you don't mention Axl in hardcore MMX fan forums.
 * Also when the Zero series was being made, Inafune had to adjust his desired plot due to the continuing X series and Executive Meddling. X was supposed to be the villain of the first game (changed to a clone). It was also going to delve into Zero's origin, but that was scrapped.
 * Mega Man 1 was originally a licensed game based on Astro Boy. The license was pulled during the game's development, leading to a whole new franchise.
 * At one point, these guys, Baroque, and Crash, were meant to be Mega Man and Rush's rival, but they were heavily reworked into, you guessed it: Bass and Treble.
 * And then, there's Bond Man. Apparently the original Mega Man was intended to have 8 Robot Masters instead of 6 - 7 had been designed when technical limitations pushed the number down to 6. The cut Master was (no, not Cut Man) the glue-based Bond Man. Oddly, despite Mega Man Powered Up being a remake of the first game with two new Robot Masters, Bond Man does not appear, so we instead get to play with the pure excellence that is Oil Man.
 * Inafune said that he wanted Bond Man to retain his mystique and remain a cult figure forever. Making him official would ruin that. Eh.
 * The Mega Man games might be the most prominent example of this trope ever, actually. Because the developers took fan submissions for Robot Masters from Mega Man 2 to Mega Man 8, roughly 750,000 bosses were at one point or another under consideration for the games.
 * Mega Man was originally going to have the ability to crouch in the first game. This was scrapped when it was decided that the graphical limitations of the NES made it too hard to determine whether a projectile needed to be crouched under or jumped over.
 * Mega Man Battle Network's prototype storyline originally had quite a few differences from the final product.
 * 1. Lan was supposed to lead a group called Right to fight against a prototype World 3 called WWPO (it was scrapped so that Lan could go solo, although he joins a group in BN 5).
 * 2. Chaud was supposed to be rich and to treat net navis as no more than tools.
 * 3. There was supposed to be a character named Mike Kenan, who was to be a high school age kid, that was an official netbattler (these two were merged, to create Chaud's final personality).
 * 4. Mike was to pass his net navi Roll.EXE to Mayl/Maylu and then take Bass.EXE as a new navi (changed to her having Roll from the beginning, and to Bass being a solo net navi).
 * 5. Mayl/Maylu was supposed to participate in the final battle against the Lifevirus (changed, but she still appears prior to that battle, along side Chaud).
 * Metroid Prime was originally envisioned as a third-person shooter, and one of considered bosses was a Meta-Kraid. Another What Could Have Been comes from all the games Nintendo cancelled so Retro would only focus on that game (including the RPG Raven Blade, which could fill a gap in the Game Cube's library of said genre). Additionally, all of the Prime games have unlockable concept art, which contains many different designs and concepts, though opinions differ on what would have been better or worse.
 * Echoes was originally planned to have Dark Ridley. Your mileage may vary on whether it would have been badass or bad.
 * There were also plans for a Dark Luminoth enemy. It was scrapped because a Luminoth would rather self-terminate than allow itself to be infected by the Ing.
 * Corruption would have used Samus' gunship a lot more. The final game is still full of Gunship Missile Capacity Upgrades and Gunship Missile Refills, but due to the rarity of doing bombing runs in the game, they're very nearly useless.
 * To this day, Monkey Island fans still want to know what Ron Gilbert's original plan for MI3 was. The plans still haven't been revealed, although Gilbert's involvement in the brainstorming of Tales of Monkey Island still made most fans at least a little happy.
 * Speaking of Tales of Monkey Island, at one time there was going to be an extended backstory on Fisheyes Alabaster in Chapter 3--his life as a pirate, what happened to his eyesight, his later life afterward--according to the interview by Sean Vanaman, but Joe Pinney and the folks at Telltale Games didn't want to make it a bit gruesome, so they shortened out the backstory due to time constraints.
 * Before that, in Chapter 1, there was going to be a puzzle that would take place in Club 41 entirely in the dark for both the PC and Wiiware versions; but unfortunately, the latter version could only hold 40 megabytes, which the game already was (no wonder the place was called "Club 41" after the 41st megabyte).
 * Also, there was going to be a different ending to Chapter 4.
 * Remember everyone's favorite SNK Boss from Mortal Kombat Kintaro? This is what he was originally going to look like. Yes, the big, bad Shokan Scourge of Outworld was originally meant to be a playable Beast Man character. Sadly, the lack of money, resources, and ability to make fake fur look good in the game prevented this version from appearing. Now, though, with rumors of “previously rumored characters” appearing in Mortal Kombat 9…
 * Mother 3 initially began development as a particularly ambitious Nintendo 64DD title with a bigger world and a storyline that was to focus on ten different main characters over the course of ten years. Several familiar characters were present in the screenshots, but with noticeably different designs: Flint had a Badass Longcoat, Duster seemed to be a parody of Link, Kumatora's getup was surprisingly Stripperific, and DCMC had a female vocalist. The game was also built around the console's 64DD add-on, which would add to the game's replay value by including, among other things, an internal clock that would affect certain actions in-game. The commercial failure of the 64DD (in the N64's final days, many years and countless abandoned-for-cart games after its originally intended release) put a huge damper on the title's completion, as did the development team's inexperience with 3D games. The project was officially canned in 2000 after six years' worth of delays, but it eventually got picked up again to be retooled for the Game Boy Advance.
 * If MS Saga: A New Dawn had done much better than it did, other sequels would have used units from Turn a Gundam and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny.
 * Myst IV: Revelation was initially intended to include another set of puzzles in Haven, involving animal tracks and dietary preferences. Technical delays led to these challenges being omitted from play, although clues that were intended to help complete the puzzle can still be found in Achenar's ship and elsewhere in that Age.
 * NiGHTs: Journey Into Dreams was originally going to be called Air Ni GHTS, and was going to use a motion controller for the Saturn. Then the project was moved to the Dreamcast, but never got past the prototype stage. Then it was going to be for the Play Station 3 and Xbox360, until it was switched to the Wii, without any extension on development time or budget.
 * You've heard of Nintendo Puzzle Collection? Yeah, that was supposed to get an English translation - key word supposed. It even got an ESRB rating. While it wasn't a huge loss in the case of Dr. Mario, which was released in America (but only in America) on the N64, a fairly big deal was made of the fact that this would be the first time Western audiences would get to experience Panel de Pon in its unedited form (earlier versions of the game were edited into Yoshi's Island and Pokémon-themed Dolled Up Installments during the localization process) and its version of Yoshi's Cookie isn't available anywhere else.
 * In No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, Henry was going to be playable in at least two more stages, but he's in only one due to time constraints.
 * A reward for saving all 99 Mudokans in Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is a bizarre cutscene called "Guardian Angel," where a robotic monstrosity with a chilling voice, a luminescent halo, and an overabundance of cutting implements taunts and corners Abe, claiming he has to "look inside if he wants to be free." Apparently, this "Guardian Angel" was supposed to be a boss until the game's producers realized children were interested in buying the game. Although the rest of the blood and nightmare fuel remains, they cut this boss for being exceptionally creepy. It still appears as a cameo; the television screen that serves as its face can faintly be seen in the background of Zulag 3.
 * "Guardian Angel" is really a character called "The Shrink", who was to be a sort of psychiatrist for Sam, a Mudokan Queen, and the last one at that. According to the Oddworld wiki, it was supposed to be sentient, and wanted to escape along with Abe and Sam.
 * Okami was originally going to use a standard realistic 3D style before the designers realized sumi-e would be a lot more fitting. Ammy's original realistic design can be seen in the video gallery unlocked by beating the game. In addition, the video and art gallery showcases an absolutely insane amount of content (locations, characters, monsters) that didn't make it into the final game. If it had, the game probably would have been twice as long.
 * Not to mention that the creators revealed in the artbook that they originally wanted to make the game about dinosaurs.
 * While The Old Republic was still in the planning stages, EA had contingencies in case they couldn't secure the Star Wars license. If they couldn't get Star Wars, EA would've have then went on to make a Lord of the Rings MMO along with a Silmarillion MMO. There were even plans for A Game of Thrones MMO.
 * And so it is that the video game saga of Penny Arcade Adventures comes to a close. The second episode apparently only made about a third of the money the first one did, and future installments have now been canceled, though it looks like their planned stories will be told in book form.
 * Persona 4 had a lot of unused concepts, such as Kanji Tatsumi as a middle-aged man, Rise Kujikawa as a juvenile delinquent, Teddie having a female human form, and Naoto would remain a boy detective. Also, weird little things like Chie and Yukiko having long and short hair, respectively.
 * Also, game files were found by intrepid hackers that included character portraits for Junpei, both with and without his hat. It seems he was to make a cameo, but for whatever reason, was Dummied Out.
 * And now a console example a lot of people know already: The PlayStation was supposed to be an SNES CD-ROM addon. However, Executive Meddling didn't let that happen, so Sony pumped up the standalone PlayStation X unit into their own console (this decision also spawned a deal with Philips, which likewise terminated acrimoniously to produce the CD-i and several games with licensed Nintendo IP.) Think how gaming would be today if that actually happened. Sony and Nintendo together!
 * Pokémon's biggest What Could Have Been is something that not many know about: A Pokémon RPG for the N64DD: From IGN64
 * This Mod on Bulbagarden believes there is evidence it eventually became Pokémon Colosseum.
 * Battle Revolution was once very different from its released version. For example, Red and Leaf were originally supposed to be in the game but were later changed to Lucas and Dawn.
 * Battle Revolution was originally more realistic and action-packed in terms of effects, as shown by the original trailer.
 * Early promotional art for Pokémon Red and Blue suggests that a female player character was supposed to be available in the games. Her character design was similar to Green's (Blue in Japan) from the Pokémon Adventures manga. In addition to this, coding from the beta of the game indicates that badges were at one point supposed to be items in your bag that could be used outside of battle similarly to the Cut and Flash HMs, perhaps as a replacement for them. Also present in the beta was an item called the Surfboard, (though whether it was intended as an obtainable item, or simply a debug tool is up for debate) which acted similarly to the Surf HM.
 * The "glitch Pokemon" Missingno actually exists 39 times in the code for the original games, and hints from both the game's code (the 39 Missingnos are scattered among the actual playable Pokemon) and the developers indicate that the Missingnos might have actually been intended to be real Pokemon that were scrapped. There are sketches that show some Pokemon that apparently were proposed for Gen 1, then shelved and released in later gens.
 * Black and White have a few - apparently Professor Juniper was originally gonna be an old man like previous ones instead of a Hot Scientist, Stunfisk was going to be another Electric/Water before becoming Ground/Electric to increase type diversity in Unova, and Jellicent was also going to be just a Water type before it was changed to Water/Ghost, again to add diversity.
 * Hydreigon and its evolution line were originally intended to be cybernetic dragons incorporating aspects of tanks within their bodies. The track-like markings on their bellies seem to be a remnant of this.
 * This Wiki goes into the details about changes between games.
 * Pokémon Gold and Silver had their Safari Zone moved-players have hacked a 'beta Safari Zone' in another area of the games that has grass but no wild Pokemon present.
 * Portal 2, as originally conceived by Valve, would have been a prequel set in Aperture Science's labs during the 1950s. This version of the game, known internally as F-STOP, introduced a new gameplay mechanic (the details of which remain secret) and removed both portals and GLaDOS entirely. GLaDOS's role as antagonist would be filled by Aperture founder Cave Johnson, who had been turned into an AI and now led a robot army against humanity. Though Valve loved the new gameplay mechanic behind F-STOP, they found that players wanted GLaDOS and the Portal Gun to return, forcing a complete rewrite the game to make it a direct sequel to the original Portal.
 * The game was initially supposed to have six individual personality spheres instead of Wheatley following you around and helping the player in the early game. Valve declared that this would be too confusing, and they scrapped these characters and replaced them with Wheatley..
 * Also the game's ending would have included Chell revealing she can indeed talk and Want You Gone was to be a duet between her and GLaDOS.
 * Multiplayer was originally envisioned to have human characters (Chell + another female) but Valve felt that it was a bit too gruesome to constantly watch a human falling into acid, crushed, etc. over and over again, so they changed the characters to robots, which would make deaths more hilarious since robots don't feel pain and are reassembled upon respawning.
 * Early promo cutscenes released for Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones had the Dark Prince as an entirely different person, instead of just a voice in his head and a model and gameplay change.
 * The player character of Psychonauts was originally a completely different character named D'artagan (or Dart) who sported a signature floppy hat that proved "too awesome for Doublefine to animate". He gets referenced a few times in-game (such as Coach Oleander declaring that Raz's name "starts with a D") and manages a short cameo in the game's final cutscene.
 * Also, the main character was created as a mentally instable ostrich. That admittedly makes sense - considering the mind of Tim Schafer - but the master himself admitted that games usually act as kind of a wish-fulfillment fantasy, and that there are likely very few people who wished to be an insane ratite.
 * The game was also initially going to be a horror-like platformer that would be Xbox-exclusive, as the 2002 trailer (which was included on the discs for Blinx the Time Sweeper, Voodoo Vince, and some printings of Halo: Combat Evolved) shows. The logo was also going to look like a logo for a spy movie, the camp was going to have a darker atmosphere and was going to be called "Whispering Pines" instead of "Whispering Rock", in Lungfishopolis you were going to fight Linda instead of Kochamara, and Word of God has it that the final level was going to take place inside Lili's mind (which Dr. Loboto was taking over), and was apparently going to be extremely terrifying. Halfway through development, Double Fine made the game less scary and more funny, which caused Microsoft to refuse to publish the game.
 * The two Nightmare bosses you face in the Milkman Conspiracy were originally part of Milla's level (thus explaining why them and the stage you fight them on are so similar to what you find in Milla's Room, instead of the level's usual Stepford Suburbia), but the developers moved them because it didn't make sense with respect to why you were in Milla's mind in the first place. Raz and a bunch of other campers were invited there for a party, so she'd have no reason to put him against the Nightmares intentionally, and losing control of them would reflect rather negatively on her abilities and mental state.
 * Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy ended in the middle of a cutscene. A planned sequel was never announced due to a lawsuit suggesting the concept was stolen. Midway won but, by then, it was in great financial trouble, ultimately going into bankruptcy and the current liquidation. It looks like Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy 2 is never going to see the light of day.
 * In Punch-Out!! for Wii, Disco Kid's files are typed as “kidquick.” Kid Quick was a character in the original arcade version of Punch-Out!!. Whether Disco Kid is the same character as Kid Quick or replaced him is unknown. However, they share the same stats and both have somewhat similar names.
 * The MMORPG Ragnarok Online is as much a triumphant example as it is tragic. The game as we know it now will likely never have a great many of features that were originally planned for it, such as player-owned apartments, and is only now, late its life, beginning to see some of the things were a little more easily brought back such as the 3rd jobs. This was not due to internal reasons, but rather due to an attack on Gravity by hackers after Ragnarok Online's Korean version entered pay-to-play. The attack destroyed basically everything, including a large portion of the development materials. The infant international Ragnarok Online was wholly cannibalized in a vain effort to keep the company afloat, and Gravity was only 'saved' on being bought out by Samsung. The game was then almost lost a second time when the director Samsung forced on the developer's tried to impose his wholly different vision on the recovery, leading to several members of the original development team quitting - mercifully, an act that lead Samsung to pull their director and leave Gravity alone to restore what they could of the project into what we have today. Further information here.
 * The developers tried for a long time to implement a Karma system, that would have operated based on a player's actions within a global PVP system. Things like 'a wholly bad' player would be free game for others to attack without penalty. There are still glimpses of the system, though a lot have been removed. The unresponsive 'Temper.' tab (that for a while lead to an inactive chart window) under character status is the only one presently springs to mind. One reason for its failure was supposedly the local ratings board not much liking depictions of humans killing one another.
 * The PVP system was originally supposed to have been much, much more complex, with league tables and the like, and was supposed to have operated wholly within a specialized arena in Izlude. Instead, for a long time, a somewhat clumsy system running on empty versions of the various town maps was the nearest thing. More recently, an actual Izlude arena has been implemented, however it still lacks a great deal of the functionality it was originally intended to have.
 * There was, at one point, also talk of the game originally having had a rather-more involved combat system than the version anyone saw, dropped very early on for 'detracting from the game's social aspects', though that story's veracity is somewhat more questionable.
 * Ratchet and Clank has the Insomniac Museum bonus that shows all the various things that had been cut, such as original designs for gadgets, unused weapons, missing enemies and level ideas, and even variant physics engines.
 * Rayman 4 was to be another platformer like its predecessors, on the Wii. There was even a trailer advertising it as such. In it, Rayman dons various costumes as he fights his way through hoardes of vicious rabbit-like monsters. The rumour is that Nintendo gave the development team a pack for mini-game programming, and the game was changed entirely. As you may have sussed, the vicious rabbit-like monsters were Rabbids, and Rayman 4 became Rayman Raving Rabbids, a launch title for the Wii, consisting of humourous mini-games, and one of the most popular Wii games still.
 * The original Rayman was going to be an SNES title, and Rayman was originally going to have a neck, arms, and legs, but apparently they were too hard to render, so they removed them. The game was also going to be about a boy who is sucked into a virtual world he made, and he becomes his own creation: Rayman.
 * Rayman 2 was going to be a 2D platformer for the PS 1 and Saturn, but when Ubisoft saw that 3D platformers like Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot were wowing everyone at E3, they reworked it into a 3D platformer, and it remains to this very day one of the greatest 3D platformers ever created.
 * Speaking of Resident Evil, the second and fourth games went through a number of iterations (respectively known as Resident Evil 1.5 and 3.5 to fans and Capcom) before the developers finally settled on the final versions of each game.
 * RE1.5 was similar to the game that would eventually be released, with the main differences being with the characters. The female main character was Elza Walker, a college student and motorcycle enthusiast who is returning home to Raccoon City on vacation. She would be retooled into Claire Redfield in order to have a greater connection with the first game. Robert Kendo (known here as John) and Marvin Branagh were to play much larger roles in the game, acting as supporting characters for Elza and Leon respectively. Annette Birkin was to get infected with the G-virus and turn into a monster like her husband William, Ada was to be known as Linda, Chief Irons was to be a hero rather than a villain, the zombies were to be more varied and gruesome, and the Chimera and Eliminator BOWs (which would appear in future games) were to serve as enemies.
 * RE3.5, meanwhile, is the name collectively given to several prototypes, all of which were scrapped for various reasons:
 * The first iteration of RE3.5 is the game that would later become Devil May Cry, and its development included several trips to Spain to study architecture as inspiration for the game's environments. This version was deemed too much of a departure from the Survival Horror genre, but those trips to Spain would be put to use for the final version of the game.
 * Following this was the "Fog Version," whose premise involved Leon infiltrating Umbrella's European headquarters, getting infected with the Progenitor Virus and fighting fog-like creatures. One of the levels was to take place on an airship.
 * After that version was scrapped, Capcom made the "Hooked Man Version," which was set in a seemingly haunted mansion and had Leon fighting what appeared to be paranormal enemies, such as medieval suits of armor (which would make it into the final game), living dolls, and the titular, ghost-like "Hooked Man," a possessed-looking man who wielded a giant hook on a chain. The game was reportedly so scary that, when the trailer debuted at E3, Shinji Mikami told the audience, "Don't pee your pants." However, the game would be scrapped for being too outright supernatural for an RE game.
 * The final version proposed reportedly featured zombies again, and was discarded for being too formulaic.
 * The UK's official Nintendo magazine actually ran a review for the Game Boy Color port of the original Resident Evil, as it was canned so close to release that it was by all accounts actually finished. We got fobbed off with Resident Evil Gaiden as a replacement, and the RE1 port languished in oblivion until a prototype was finally discovered and ROM-dumped in 2012.
 * Resident Evil 5 had several disappointing omissions evidenced by the concept art, which include Wesker, an Uruboros battle on top of a train, Jill  a boss battle with a horde of Ndesus and a Tyrant. A Tyrant. Which kills Excella. View them here.
 * In a podcast, Insomniac Games revealed that Resistance: Fall of Man was originally envisioned a futuristic, time-travelling World War I game with loads of inspiration taken from the film version of Starship Troopers. Also, the actual game was supposed to start with Hale touring an American aircraft carrier before leaving for Britain, but the level was cut due to time constraints. There were also plans to include a grappling gun, but that weapon was cut since the team felt it was too much of a Game Breaker.
 * Rez, or Project K as it was known during pre-production, featured a more humanoid character running across an infinite bridge and a much different control scheme. At one point the music was planned to be composed by Aphex Twin.
 * Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends was supposed to have four nations instead of three, and four campaigns, to fit. The mysterious “fourth nation” that was eventually scrapped went through several iterations too: first they were the Skald, based on Finnish, Slavic, and some northern Europeans mythology. And then they were the Kragar(?), apparently a race of bestial giants who tamed great beasts. And then they were the Khan, based on ancient Mongolian mythology and history.
 * Rogue Warrior. Initially developed by Zombie Inc. (subtitled Black Razor) was supposed to be a tactical First-Person Shooter that featured four player co-op and randomized level layout (somewhat in the vein of Left 4 Dead 2). Then Bethesda in 2009 stated they weren't completely satisfied with the current status and handed the development to Rebellion Developments (who were also making a new Aliens vs. Predator game.) One would consider what Bethesda was smoking, considering how Rebellion's game came out.
 * At least they have Mickey Rourke rapping over the end credits.
 * According to the second-to-last paragraph in this article, a feature called "Freegunning" was scrapped from the final cut of Saint's Row the Third. This combat style would have incorporated the series' firearm emphasis with Assassin's Creed-style freerunning.
 * Back in 2004, there was supposed to be a sequel to the popular PC game Sam and Max Freelance Police Hit The Road, titled simply Sam and Max: Freelance Police!!. However, LucasArts cancelled the game, stating that there wasn't a market for its kind of game. This would lead to the creation of Telltale Games, and the would-be game would be referenced as probably one of the ultimate Noodle Incidents.
 * Sands of Destruction originally had an allegedly much more darker story, drafted by Masato Kato, who's responsible for the Chrono series, Xenogears and Baten Kaitos, before Executive Meddling came in and had the game marketed towards a younger audience. It results in the game's strange case of Mood Whiplash.
 * The game actually had a much “Darker and Edgier script,” as described by the writers. In the original version, the Ferals actually ate humans, not just Porcus Rex. However, this, among other things, was toned down in order to get a much more accessible rating in Japan (since Japan doesn't exactly have a Avoid the Dreaded G Rating/Rated "M" for Money mentality). Despite the fact that the writers actually did approve of the change, they were cited as saying they thought it would have been interesting.
 * Secret of Mana was originally intended to be for the Super Nintendo CD add-on, which would've allowed the game to be much larger and to feature CD-quality music tracks. Notice how many of the plot threads concerning the Empire seem incomplete and rushed, and how the game's sound and music glitches at times when there's a lot going on (the result of the Super Nintendo's eight music channels being too few for the game's complex music).
 * And then they re-released it on the iPhone… and it was basically the same game as the SNES version with only a few graphical upgrades. Come on Square; you can remake the game in all its glory now, Why wait?
 * Aside from the lack of convenience in making such an effort for what would be a niche game anyway (the Mana saga is not certainly the biggest IP Squenix has), the original assets may be lost.
 * In several gaming magazines, it was mentioned that the story for Shenmue spanning a total of 25 -- that's twenty-five -- games, one for each year Ryo would have spent on his quest for revenge. Yowza. This was condensed down into 25 chapters, each game having multiple chapters (for instance, the first game was chapter 1, the second game had 3-5 or so, the 2nd chapter being in an unshown part of the games). This was still a lot more than they fit into two games…
 * It was also going to be a Saturn game at first. Ryo has a Saturn in his house as a Shout-Out to this.
 * And originally, it was going to be a game set in the Virtua Fighter universe, with Akira as the main character.
 * Silent Hill:
 * Silent Hill 4 was originally just going to be a Gaiden Game and not a full sequel; the only parts of that idea to survive are the first person bits in Henry's apartment.
 * Hacking into the game has revealed placeholder items (the same gems from Silent Hill 1) for unlocking the sadly-absent UFO ending.
 * Origins changed development teams entirely not long before it was released. The original version was a Resident Evil 4 clone that drew on a great deal more material from the movie. The first previews indicated the game was going to use the Over the Shoulder camera to deal with the smaller PSP screen.
 * Maxis Software (creator of SimCity) has had a few. First, prior to 1998, SimCity 3000 was to be in full 3D. Then, when EA acquired them, they put an end to developing non-Sim products (this included employee personal projects, a sports brand, and much more.) Finally, even after the acquisition, two other games, SimMars and SimsVille were scrapped.
 * An early draft of the first Sly Cooper game featured Sly with a more Cockney accent (the comment track mocks this slightly) and Bentley with a more studied one. Sly also had a different name. Also, a slight change between the demo and the production game: in the first, the save points weren't remote beacons, but apparently a girl in a trunk who would pop out and photograph Sly (and remain inside giggling no matter how much you smacked her trunk with your cane).
 * In late 2009, NBA Jam co-creator Mark Turmell revealed that he was working on a Smash TV remake at the time his former employers at Midway Games went bankrupt. The project died, and Turmell was hired by EA Tiburon shortly thereafter.
 * "Soulcalibur V" had a single player campaign that was supposed to be 4 times as long featuring more of the characters but much was cut due to time contrains.
 * Splinter Cell: Conviction changed drastically from the time it was announced (in 2007) to when it was released in 2010. In 2008, Ubisoft Montreal put the game on hold and completely overhauled it, changing almost every element as a result. Reportedly, Ubisoft did this because of fears that the gameplay was too similar to Assassins Creed (also a Ubisoft title). The original character design for Sam Fisher had him looking like a homeless man, who sported a hoodie and a large amount of facial hair, and carried a small satchel on his back (in the final version, he simply wears a more casual variant of his normal attire). The “social stealth” gameplay (wherein Fisher could use items, furniture and people in the environment as tools to distract the authorities, not to mention being able to hide under tables) was also removed, and replaced with a cover system that measured how long an enemy saw you for, and a ghost of your “last known position” that would distract enemies. Also, according to beta gameplay seen at the UBI Days game convention, Sam would have to outwit ordinary policemen and bystanders who wanted to take a shot at him. In the final version, he just goes up against conventional terrorist forces and.
 * The story changed as well. Sam was originally supposed to spend the entire game clearing his name (after the events of Double Agent) and trying to find out who killed his daughter. In the final version, . The beta also had “memento sequences” you would activate at certain points to get flashbacks. In the final version, these sequences are automatically played on walls as you progress through a level.
 * Spore originally had a much different interface, procedurally generated content for many more things, an underwater part, more complexity, more animal behaviors. Look at what everyone expected here.
 * An early version had a sub atomic stage preceding the cell stage before it was cut.
 * The classic arcade game Spy Hunter was originally intended to have the James Bond theme as its theme music, but when the rights for it couldn't be obtained, the Peter Gunn theme was used instead.
 * Ladies and gentlemen, STALKER: Oblivion Lost circa 2001. It didn't even had the Chernobyl setting until a year later.
 * There were also some other stuff that endured (and even got implemented) in development as far as 2006, but got cut in the released game, like vehicles (cut likely due to overpresence of anomalies) and the ability of allied NPCs to beat the game by themselves.
 * For some curious fans, GSC Game World have released the 2004 beta build for free download.
 * Spyborgs is perhaps one of the most drastic case of a game being overhauled during developement. First announced at Capcom's 2008 Captivate event, it was meant to be an humourous action-adventure game whose action would be framed by silly Wario Ware-esque commercial running through the levels. However, a tepid reception led to the developers scrapping their original idea and overhauling the game in a gritty, generic hack & slash which only shared the design of the main characters.
 * The flagship in Star Control II was going to acquire a cloaking device eventually, but by that point the developers were running out of time and couldn't think of a way to make it “more interesting than the Ilwrath's.” Also, allying with the Orz was originally intended to be more ambiguous than favorable; bringing Orz ships into Quasispace would have had unpleasant consequences. Most interestingly of all, Groombridge was programmed as a Developer's Room and would have enabled the Captain to talk to godlike graphical representations of Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III. Hence, the significance of the Rainbow Worlds.
 * StarCraft II would have been considerably different if Blizzard hadn't backtracked and made a game far closer to the original than what their initial concepts had been. Going by early fan suggestions, the game could have included just about 'anything'.
 * The unreleased Star FOX 2 is possibly the ultimate embodiment of this trope in videogame form. Among those who've played it, it...
 * ... is considered to be the best looking and one of the best games ever made for the SNES.
 * ... has game mechanics compared favorably to games made more than a decade later.
 * ... often put as better than the much loved Star Fox 64.
 * There was going to be a game called "Dinosaur Planet" for the Nintendo 64 developed by Rare. It was eventually moved to the Gamecube and,after people noticed the similarities in character designs to the Star Fox franchise, reworked into Star Fox Adventures. Many fans consider it a shame it was reworked since it was going to be a Killer App for the the 64, it had very impressive graphics for the system, and it seemed like an impressive action-adventure title. Star Fox Adventures however turned out to be quite the Base Breaker.
 * Capcom's Star Gladiator was, according to an interview with Capcom's Seth Killian, at one point supposed to have been a Star Wars Fighting Game. Presumably, Lucasarts thought it would be easier and cheaper to make their own damn game rather than license a foreign company to make it. A year after Star Gladiator released, the result was... Masters of Teras Kasi.
 * Erin Roberts' space combat game Starlancer was supposed to be the first title in an epic trilogy depicting a vast war lasting over a century between two factions of humans for control of the entire solar system which would end with one of the sides victorious and the other fleeing to other star systems on colonization ships, shortly before aliens would show up and vaporize the solar system. There were also going to be side-games, of which one, a tactical squad shooter, was being planned. Naturally, the first game did not sell as well as expected and the whole project was shelved.
 * This had an effect on his brother Chris Roberts' game Freelancer, which was in simultaneous development, and is a continuation of Starlancer. It was supposed to resolve the mystery of the aliens who destroyed Earth, as well as simultaneously being the definitive trading space simulator featuring unparalleled AI and freedom. However, studio pressure saw the project's ambitions being greatly reduced (probably for the best, as Freelancer was nearly Vaporware to begin with). The cancellation of the remaining Starlancer games also saw all references to the destruction of Sol being removed, although some CGI sequences depicting this did survive.
 * After Free Radical went bankrupt, Star Wars Battlefront III concept art leaked out, which showed Sith Lord Obi-Wan Kenobi. The game may never be made.
 * This game has been reverted numerous times… hopefully this means that the final version will be that much better when it will come out (oh yes, profit provides) but it's an Executive Meddling gambit. Certainly among other things, for better or worse the game lost terrain damage (similar tech as used in Fracture) and a dynamic, load-free space/surface battle transition. Either way, YMMV.
 * Street Fighter Alpha 3 was originally going to have Joe (from the original Street Fighter). However, he was dropped and replaced with Cody. In addition, Dee Jay and T. Hawk were meant to be in Street Fighter IV, evidenced by audio clips of the announcer calling their names being found in the game data. Hugo was meant to appear in the original Street Fighter III, and Shin Akuma in 3rd Strike (only regular Akuma is playable). Dee Jay wasn't meant to be a character at all; original sketches showed Fei Long, Cammy, T. Hawk, and another character who was a headswap of Fei Long. One of the designers at Capcom USA objected to this, and designed his own character, Dee Jay, and was approved. Probably explains why he always gets screwed over.
 * But now T. Hawk and Dee Jay are back for Super Street Fighter IV. Yes!
 * The "headswapped Chinese guy" concept probably ended up leading to the creation of Yun and Yang in Street Fighter III, as they are both basically Fei Long with a variation of his moveset. Sean was likely also meant to be a Shotoclone at the earliest incarnation of the game's development, given that his Super Arts...do not seem particularly super.
 * Street Fighter III wasn't supposed to have any returning characters at all, and was supposed to feature an entirely new cast. Because of this, Sean was supposed to be the only shoto. Of course, after Capcom heard the fans responses, Ryu and Ken were added.
 * The Super Street Fighter IV artbook proves that Strider Hiryu was originally going to be an alternate outfit for Guy…
 * Karin, Sakura's rival, was originally supposed to debut in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter similarly to how the Shadaloo rendition of Cammy first appeared in X-Men vs. Street Fighter. An early version of her sprite can be found in the game's data, which reveals that she was originally planned to be a simple head-swap of Sakura.
 * Streets of Rage 3 had more features planned for the game before the final version had dummied them out. In the 2nd scene of stage 1, there was going to be a mini-boss by the name of Ash, who was a tall, Camp Gay, man that would mostly body slam you and giggle and if you beat him, he would emit a female cry instead of a male one and sits on the ground crying. This is actually present in the Japanese version, but Executive Meddling forced him to be cut outside of Japan for obvious reasons. A side scrolling motorbike level was going to be in the game as well as shown by the previews in video game magazines, but this concept was cut out.
 * The makers of Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 originally intended to avert one of the greatest What Could Have Beens in Anime history: Giant Robo. The proposed storyline would have had Big Fire attempting to usurp the godhead of Irui, claiming the power of Nashim Ganeden for himself. Unfortunately, Mitsuteru Yokoyama died while the game was in development, and his estate raised the licensing cost for all his works, meaning Giant Robo had to sit out of the Grand Finale of the Alpha timeline.
 * Furthermore, sprites for Gundam Sentinel were found within the game data when hacked; fans suspect that the story was originally planned to be the conclusion of Universal Century Gundam in Alpha, but was cut when Executive Meddling forced Banpresto to include the up-and-coming fan favorite Gundam Seed in Alpha 3 instead.
 * A minor one, but that digging also revealed that there was a second Getter Robo theme placed in, "Gattai! Getter Robo", which wasn't used in favor of again "Getter Robo!"
 * Continuing with Super Robot Wars, a lack of money forced Banpresto to leave out a video game recreation of Mobile Suit Gundam 00's final fight between Gundam Exia and 0 Gundam in Super Robot Wars Z 2-2
 * Continuing with Banpresto, the Queens Blade Spiral Chaos game was planned originally as a multi-series crossover game Super Robot Wars-style, but using non-mecha series (besides Queen's Blade, other anime series were planned to appear) but it wasn't possible those series to be included, due to the authors and companies being reticent to allow their characters being crossed-over with other characters from other series. The sequel, Queen's Gate Spiral Chaos is the closest thing to the original idea Banpresto was able to get and still they weren't allowed to use Kasumi from the Dead or Alive series and she's replaced with Wonder Momo instead.
 * Some lost data found in Super Smash Bros. Brawl suggests that it was originally going to have Roy, Toon Zelda, Tetra, Dr. Mario, Mewtwo, Dixie Kong, and arguably Plusle and Minun as playable characters. They are often called the Forbidden 7. Aside from Mewtwo, it's not a major loss since most of them probably would've ended up as clones or semi-clones anyways. There has also been some speculation that Geno from Super Mario RPG was originally meant to be in the game, and that the Forest Maze music from said game was originally going to be featured in the game. There are also 14-18 tracks that they didn't end up using there as well, known as the Lost Music.
 * Mewtwo wouldn't have been as much a semi-clone of Lucario (or vice versa) as Roy or Dixie Kong?
 * Interestingly, it was said that Sonic and Solid Snake weren't going to be the only characters from their franchises - Shadow and Grey Fox were supposed to join them. However, Sega and Konami vetoed this and they were Demoted to Assist Trophy
 * The original game wasn't supposed to feature Nintendo characters at all, instead having original characters. After it was changed to the characters from Nintendo, Peach, Bowser, Mewtwo, Meowth, King Dedede, and Pit were meant to be playable . Also, Final Smashes were meant to be in from the very first game.
 * And in Melee, Roy and Marth weren't supposed to be in the American version, Ness was supposed to be replaced with Lucas (which didn't happen because Lucas's game hadn't been released), and Pit and Balloon Fighter were considered for a spot as retro characters, but lost to the Ice Climbers.
 * As well, Hideo Kojima wanted Solid Snake to show up in Melee, but it was too far into production to implement him into the game.
 * Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary story was supposed to have more details in it and show that King Dedede knew of, but because that part of the story was cut due to time constraints and/or disc space limits, Dedede's actions in the story may make little sense to most people.
 * Tales of Legendia supposedly had intentions of having Walter survive his final encounter with the party and join them later on. Not to mention, there are unrecorded lines in the Japanese version that suggest that Mystic Artes/Hi Ougis were going to be put in the game.
 * Apparently, it was also going to be on the Gamecube as well as PlayStation 2.
 * Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World originally had  survive and join your party.
 * Tales of the Abyss actually has quite a bit of Dummied Out content, some of which was actually restored in the North American and Undub version. Among the content cut from the initial release included unused hi-ougi cut-ins (including ones for Guy and Natalia), unused artes, the potential of Van being in the party, etc. A bug in the Japanese version would cause Rid's cut-in to show up if he uses Burning Phoenix, suggesting this was likely dummied out to make their deadline.
 * And even in the American version; there were a couple artes such as Natalia's "Chronos Raid" that are only accessible via cheat devices.
 * Team Fortress 2. Originally meant to be a realistic military FPS subtitled Brotherhood of Arms, it vanished off the face of the earth for several years and re-emerged as an over-the-top, cartoony game that emphasized Rule of Funny and Rule of Cool over any sort of realism, its prerelease coverage spawning numerous class-based team objective games in the meantime. And even then the character designs have been retooled somewhat. (For example, Beta!Scout is much older and more thuggish looking, Beta!Spy and Beta!Medic wore their symbols on arm bands, Beta!Demoman was just Scottish, Beta!Pyro was a bald man whose face was visible through his visor...)
 * That's not the start of it. Team Fortress 2 started out as a combination FPS and RTS.
 * Lara Croft of Tomb Raider fame was originally a male Indiana Jones clone, before being changed to a South American adventurer named Laura Cruz. They eventually changed her name to "Croft" to be 'UK friendly' and the "u" was taken out of her name due to pronunciation issues with Americans.
 * Lara was also supposed to have grenades, dual Uzis, and a rocket launcher in the first game, but most of the ideas were scrapped due to technical limitations. The developers gave Lara dual Pistols instead and made the Uzis a late game pickup. Lara would eventually gain the use of a Rocket Launcher in Tomb Raider III and grenades in Tomb Raider: Legend. Legend was also supposed to have Lara be able to use a Rocket Launcher as show in the concept art, but it was scrapped.
 * The people of Type-Moon revealed that the original protagonists of Fate/stay night were going to be a Meganekko girl with magical proficiency and her male servant named Saver. Eventually the girl was dropped, and Saver was given a Gender Flip and revamped as the Saber we all know and love.
 * Also, the original design for the main character evolved into Rin, which might explain her prominence in all 3 routes and the fact that she's the POV character for the prologue and one epilogue.
 * Likewise, the original design for Saver (likely an Engrish misspelling of Saber) was recycled into the design for Gilgamesh.
 * The Ilya route was also dropped as well. However, the backstory, mostly focusing on Kiritsugu's efforts during the Fourth Holy Grail War, was eventually adapted and expanded into the light novel series known as Fate/Zero. Ilya complains about it in Tiger Dojo.
 * Amusingly, and possibly as a Mythology Gag, the video game Fate/EXTRA does have a Servant of class Saver. It's not Arthur though.
 * The original idea in was actually animated as a small short tiled Fate/Prototype.
 * Universe At War: Earth Assault was originally conceived as the first installment of the Universe At War series but no sequel materialized after SEGA decided the sales and reception wasn't good enough.
 * Near the time of its final release, the latest version of Unreal II the Awakening before the version that would hit the shelves, had the weight of 8GB due to all the content. (Including a fully functional multiplayer, which had 5 modes, the 4 classic ones and a brand-new one called XMP) It also would have included, at least, 3 new races and 6 new weapons. The multiplayer part was dumped in favor of Unreal Tournament 2003 / Unreal Championship. And the rest of the cut-offs were in order to reduce the weight of the game. All these decisions derived, arguably, in the Dork Age of the Unreal universe.
 * Unreal Tournament III would have had a mode called Conquest, which could be called “a RTS game inside of a FPS.” It was dumped out in favor of Warfare, a Retool of Onslaught.
 * Viewtiful Joe 2 would of had a co-op mode where one player plays as Joe and the other as Sylvia. This was implied in the first teaser trailer, but Capcom decided to remove this early during the development process.
 * World of Warcraft falls prey to this a lot. One of the most clear examples is the Wrath Of The Lich King expansion's scrapped aspects. It was intended that there be a Gundrak raid and a third wing of Utgarde Keep, and Crystalsong forest was intended to be the home of the Argent Crusade tournament (as opposed to containing the floating city of Dalran and nothing else) By far most painful, it was initially intended that the Azjol-Nerub kingdoms be an entire underground zone in which players would have significant interaction with Anub'arak, Arthas' third in command, and presumably deal with the sinister and desperate spider-like Nerubians who used to rule most of Northrend. Instead, there are two dungeons. Anu'barak is the boss of the lower level one. He has no effect on the game apart from that, though he comes back as a boss under the tournament. And there are a grand total of four living Nerubians in the game, and only one of them even has a name (though more were added in Cataclysm). This is particularly odd given that they introduced tons of new races in Northrend, but gave no presence to the race that people had known was there since Warcraft 3 came out in 2002.
 * The Burning Crusade was just as bad about this; several characters that were slated for return were left out completely, and so called “portal worlds” (completely different, presumably legion held planets that would have been accessed via portals) were excluded, though they were a bit selling point of the expansion.
 * Hero classes were a feature mentioned before the game was released. Six years since the initial release, they have only created one (Death Knights). Paladins were at one point going to be one, but ultimately made a normal class.
 * Two words: Dance Studio.
 * THQ and AKI started work on a sequel to WWF No Mercy called WWF Backlash. They were around 20% complete when the game was cancelled due to Nintendo deciding to cut support for the N64.
 * Xenosaga. The series was meant to be a six-game epic spanning several console generations, but due to Executive Meddling (such as firing basically everyone on the project) and the crapfest of a game (Episode II) it produced, it was not to be--despite the positive reception of Episode III, which came about after they fired almost all of the replacement staff from Episode II.
 * Made even more complicated when you realize that the original plan for a series of six linked games comes from the time when the developers were all still part of Square (and the rough timeline of which was released in Japan as a book called Xenogears Perfect Works, which no one else ever got, naturally), and the game Xenogears (released on the PS 1) was originally intended to be part FIVE of six. After the developers left Square and formed Monolith Soft, the original intent was to start over from scratch, releasing all six games in order and doing a completely new version of the fifth game (essentially replacing Xenogears). And then things got REALLY complicated...
 * Ultimately, the entire plot of the first "chapter" (as outlined in Perfect Works) was reduced to little more than a prologue cut-scene in Xenosaga Episode I, while what was originally supposed to be "Chapter 2 of 6" (as per Perfect Works) kept expanding until the entire plot of all three Xenosaga games are covering what was intended to be the plot of a SINGLE game. In other words, the original plan to produce a story in six chapters, as presented in Perfect Works, with each game telling a single chapter, wound up producing four games - with only "Chapter Five" and "Chapter Two" being told (with "Chapter One" turned into a footnote and "Chapter Two" being three times longer than it was supposed to be). And we all thought George Lucas was bad at episode numbering...
 * A similar fate befell its spiritual predecessor, Xenogears. They dev team (the one that was ultimately axed midway through Episode II's development cycle) ran out of time and money just as they were starting the second disc. A masterpiece of a game which climaxed with was hobbled, a game meant to last over 80 hours got cut to 60 or so, and most of the story of the second disc was cut to characters narrating on a rocking chair while a pre-rendered tableau of what you would have been playing at that moment appeared behind them. What's more, two whole gears (what would have been Maria and Emerelda's Omnigears) were left on the cutting room floor because of the time and money constraints.
 * Though some fans will tell you that the "problems" of disc two are what elevated the game to greatness, making this one of the more extreme cases of Your Mileage May Vary out there.
 * The Darcsen ethnic group in Valkyria Chronicles were originally going to be Beastmen. One must wonder if people would have accused the game of historical revisionism (see page for details) if they had stuck with this plan.