During the long and exhausting process of developing a video game, the likelihood of the project changing increases. As more and more time goes on, the ins and outs of what the game started as and what it's becoming can intersect. Sometimes this results in the unfortunate cancelation of a game that we will never get to play, but sometimes it leads to something even more interesting.
It's not an uncommon practice in the industry to reuse old assets and ideas, either to save money or resources. It's smart and one of the more unique aspects of the industry, where a concept is crafted for a certain project, only to be abandoned. But what happens to that old idea? Well, sometimes it gets dusted off and shocked back to life into something amazing.
7 BioShock Started As A Story About A Cult Deprogrammer
Even though BioShock went on to become a landmark release when it finally launched in 2007, the original concept could have been even more fascinating. BioShock is a game that leans heavily into its politics, casting a shady eye on objectivism and capitalism, but it was originally set to be a story about a cult deprogrammer.
The developers sought to cast the player as a cult deprogrammer who was sent in to kidnap a lesbian woman, hired by a US senator to do so. Pretty heavy stuff, even for the decidedly serious tone this era of games was going for. Eventually, the developers thought the story was too intense and turned BioShockinto the game it later became.
6 Doom 2016 Was Envisioned As A Call Of Duty Clone
As one of the innovators of the first-person shooter genre, it makes sense that Doom would eventually begin to borrow from the games that it inspired. The shadow of Call of Duty loomed large over the demon-killing franchise. That is exactly what happened when Doom 4 was in development, a game that was described by various people inside id Software as "Call Of Doom" or "BattleDoom".
After id Software was purchased by ZeniMax Media in 2009, the concept was abandoned and the project entered a new phase of development. It's worth noting that elements of the project did eventually make their way back into the 2016 version of Doom, including what would become the glory kill system.
5 Banjo-Kazooie Was Originally An RPG About Pirates
Fresh off the heels of their incredible work on Donkey Kong Country, Rare was excited to use their new tech for something original. Using Silicon Graphics workstations, Rare created gorgeous 3D sprites that were used to build the worlds and levels of DKC. With that in mind, Rare decided to apply it to an entirely new and original project called Dream: Land Of Giants.
However, as development progressed, game director Greg Mayles saw the game beginning to change around the lead character as he became less and less relevant to the project. The character of Edson was replaced with a bear named Banjo and a bird named Kazooie, leading directly to the development of Banjo-Kazooie.
4 Metroid Prime Was Born From A Visit To Retro Studios By Shigeru Miyamoto
After it skipped the entire Nintendo 64 generation, the Metroid franchise was in something of a holding pattern. Nintendo made efforts to produce another entry but ultimately decided to seek an external studio to handle Samus Aran's next adventure. While Austin-based Retro Studios was developing four different projects, Shigeru Miyamoto made the trip to see what they were working on.
Miyamoto took note of a first-person shooter they had in development, urging them to reconsider it and establish it as the next Metroid title. Under his direction, Retro ditched that and other projects, turning what they had into Metroid Prime and allowing players to see the world through Samus' visor.
3 An Early Version Of Resident Evil 4 Lead To Devil May Cry
It had become standard for Capcom to develop multiple iterations of a Resident Evil game before settling on the final one by the time RE4 was in development. During the earliest days of Resident Evil 4, director Hideki Kamiya created a story surrounding the mystery of a man named Tony and his set of powers. But as development continued, series creator Shinji Mikami called an audible.
It was deemed out of character for the Resident Evil series, but much of the photos that Capcom staff took during trips to Spain for textures and assets were repurposed into a demon-slaying action game where Kamiya was able to really flesh out the world. The end result was 2001's Devil May Cry.
2 Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver Was A Repurposed Version Of A Project Called Shifter
After the release of Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain in 1996, a messy legal battle over the rights to produce a sequel began to play out between Silicon Knights and Crystal Dynamics. The end result was Crystal Dynamics gaining the rights to develop a sequel, which they internally called "Kain II". Meanwhile, inside Crystal, a project known as Shifter was in development by Amy Hennig.
Based heavily on the poem Paradise Lost, Shifter was to be about a fallen angel who had attempted to get revenge on the false god that betrayed him. Once Crystal Dynamics had gained control of the franchise, Shifter was abandoned and elements of it were restructured into what became Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver.
1 Parasite Eve Started As A Final Fantasy Game About A Detective In New York
It's hard to believe that the game that became Final Fantasy 7 was originally about a detective named Hot-Blooded Joe, who was living in modern-day 1999 New York. Further development led to Joe being thrown into the trash, but the concept of an RPG detective story set in New York didn't languish in Square's offices for too long.
While the Sorceress Edea character was later re-used in Final Fantasy 8, a dark detective RPG was spearheaded inside Square and reworked into the survival horror RPG called Parasite Eve. The character of Joe appears to be lost forever, but Square was able to salvage one element to create one of the most fascinating games of the 1990s.