The game was originally announced at E3 2014 under the name "Mario Maker", with a demo and trailer featuring several differences from the final version of the game. These include a much different course editor HUD, different icons for the undo/reset buttons, and 8-bit text for the Play clapper. Other differences seen throughout the trailer include a vastly different look for the Super Mario Bros. theme, and slight alterations to the HUD of New Super Mario Bros. U.
Originally, Donatello's Super Move was intended to be slightly different. Instead of driving the Turtle Van and shooting lasers at opponents with the other 3 Turtles, he would've perched atop the van alone, remote in hand, and rammed opponents directly.
During development, Wolves were meant to have much more complicated behavior. Every new match would have wolves start the game by forming a pack and then wandering across the map, seeking food sources while avoiding towns. Their level of aggression would vary based on their level of hunger. Furthermore, players would be able to hear howling in the background at points, the frequency of which would hint at the threat the wolves posed.
Due to the success of the Croc games, Fox Interactive considered creating an animated television series based on them. A show bible was written by Flint Dille complete with backstory and six episode synopses, but plans for the series were scrapped. These documents were considered lost for over 25 years until 2024, when Argonaut Games announced that the show bible (as well as accompanying meeting notes) would be included in the remaster of Croc: Legend of the Gobbos as part of the game's Crocipedia.
In Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics, the G.U.N. Commander (who was unnamed in the games) was given the name "Abraham Tower". According to writer Ian Flynn, the reason he was given a name was because he "didn't want to be trapped by calling him 'Commander' or 'sir' every stinkin' time". The name (originally used by a character from a fan-made comic that Flynn never finished) was meant to evoke an idea of authoritative power: "Abraham", whether in regards to the biblical figure or the U.S. historical figure, lends itself to the notion of an influential leader, and "Tower" was in reference to how he was "tall, rigid, standing over all others". Although the name was exclusively used in the Archie comics, it would later be made canon to the game continuity when it was used for the character in the webseries "Sonic X Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings", which was also written by Flynn.
When Astro Bot released, many players noted how there was no reference to Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII despite how important that game was to the original PlayStation, or any sort of Square Enix content in the game for that matter. During an interview with Game File, Nicolas Doucet (studio head of Team Asobi) hinted that the team had considered adding a cameo from Cloud, but were unable to get permission from Square Enix, stating it was "difficult to comment on that".
Series director Katsuhiro Harada has admitted on multiple occasions that at one point, he tried to get Colonel Sanders, the founder and mascot of the fast food restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken, as a playable guest character. He approached the Japanese offices of KFC to ask permission for Sanders to appear in Tekken, but was given a "bad look" upon proposing the idea and it was shot down.
Among the files uncovered in the 2020 Gigaleak, a massive breach of internal server data from Nintendo, are early assets for characters who do not appear in the final game:
• Early textures for Wisp and Blathers. Given that both characters would later debut in Animal Crossing and Doubutsu no Mori e+, the presence of these assets reveals that they were originally planned for the N64 game before being held off and redesigned for the GameCube ports. Both early models feature different faces for the characters, with Blathers in particular resembling Celeste, who would debut in Animal Crossing: Wild World (implying that her design likely drew inspiration from Blathers' scrapped N64 model). • Textures for a scrapped female cat villager with the internal ID CAT13. As villagers were not originally intended to change clothes, her default outfit, a Beatnik shirt, is included in her texture pack. However, no other data for her is present, leaving it unclear what her personality was going to be. The CAT13 ID (also written as CATD in hexadecimal) was ultimately given to Ankha in Animal Crossing; it is unknown if the original CAT13 evolved into Ankha during development or if she was simply assigned the ID for the sake of convenience. In Wild World onward, which uses a new ID system, the cat13 ID (spelled in lowercase this time) is instead given to Stinky (whose ID was CAT8 in the N64 and GameCube installments). • An ID for a scrapped bear villager, BEA3. No additional data is present in the leaked files, with their associated folder being completely absent, and no villagers in Animal Crossing reuse their ID.
The choice to include a train as the primary mode of transportation was inspired by a book Eiji Aonuma read to his son, "The Tracks Go On" by Fumiko Takeshita and Mamoru Suzuki. In this book, children lay down tracks for a train as it progresses across the countryside. A year of the game's two-year development time was spent working on the ability to lay down tracks before the feature was ultimately cut.
As part of "The 8th KAC Original Song Contest", several artists affiliated with independent music label HARDCORE TANO*C collaborated on a song known as "BATTLE NO. 1". However, the song was rejected from the contest. It's theorized this was due to the artists being credited as "TANO*C Sound Team", a jab at the controversial "BEMANI Sound Team" rebranding of BEMANI's internal composers. "BATTLE NO. 1" would later be featured in other rhythm games such as WACCA, Arcaea, and the Maimai series.
According to Takaya Imamura in a 2002 interview with Nintendo Dream, a lot of time was spent between Rare and Nintendo brainstorming on what kind of equipment and weaponry Fox should have during the transition from Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox Adventures. Imamura wanted Fox to use a gun, similar to his original EAD-created prototype of Star Fox Adventures before it was merged with Dinosaur Planet. However, this was not well suited for the Zelda-esque framework established by Dinosaur Planet, so this was abandoned and they embarked on a long period of trial-and-error to determine what weapon Fox should use.
After experimenting with ideas such as a whip, or a gun and sword combo (possibly based on how Fox was already using Sabre's sword in the leaked Dinosaur Planet build), Rare and Nintendo finally settled on Krystal's staff. Imamura claims that this was decided upon because it was a weapon that doesn't require the player to slash the enemy, as he felt uncomfortable with the idea of an animal character like Fox being able to decapitate opponents.
The initial release of the arcade version features unused character biographies for the game's playable cast. These biographies are facetious in nature, for instance claiming that Shinnok was an ex-model for the Bicycle brand of playing cards and that Scorpion's mission in life is to scold a friend for punching him when he was a child. The joking nature of these biographies likely contributed to their disabling in the original build and outright removal from the game's code in subsequent updates. Examining the biographies through hacking the game shows that two of them are unfinished. Fujin is referred to as "Windgod" and Noob Saibot's biography is mostly recycled from Raiden's, with the only original portion being the cut-off opening line.
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After getting Whisper's Love, a Rumrom called the Haunted Stone can be found in the Haunted House cellar. Its description refers to flying the Rocket to the Moon, but it's engraved with pictures of four arches leading up towards the Dragon. This depicts a cut area called "Dragon's Tail" that would have been used in a dream sequence triggered by Florence in the middle of the game, and revisited in a cut ending by reflecting two mirrors at a gate to create a tunnel to it. The area can be accessed through the debug menu, and was not removed before release as the developers never expected players to find it. They considered adding it to the 2019 re-release in either a reworked form or as a DLC ending, but decided against it.
Designer Yoshiro Kimura and artist Kazuyuki Kurashima envisioned it as a purgatory where souls from real life and the game world meet before going to Heaven or Hell. It was inspired by books Kimura read that made him feel there were "other layers to humanity than what we normally experience in reality", as well as a one-man stage play he put on while working at Squaresoft called "Mononoke", about a bullied boy who enters a similar purgatory. Dragon's Tail was cut when Kimura designed the Monster Catch system and thought the ideas that came from it were more interesting and fitting with the game's themes, and because he found the area too similar to a chapter from the Osamu Tezuka manga "Phoenix". He recalled this as a stressful change as all the assets for the new ending had to be built out of clay and then imported into the game.
Dragon's Tail adds more backstory to a minor item in the final game called the White-Feathered Arrow. By interacting with Bilby, the Minister, and two papers in his bedroom, it's learned that this item Spoiler:was shot in the air as a ritual to randomly select a citizen to seal inside the cursed armor of the Hero and slay the Dragon. That person will endlessly chase and fight monsters until they die of old age. Since the game parodies contemporary RPGs like Dragon Quest, it's theorized that the White-Feathered Arrow is based on the cursor used to name player characters in that series. In the dream sequence, the Boy finds a crying naked boy who will follow him through the arches into a house at the end of the area. Inside is Spoiler:Gramby, where it's revealed that the naked boy is not only Gramby's presumed dead grandson, but also the Hero chosen by the White-Feathered Arrow who is destined to atone for killing monsters by healing them all. A long line of monsters and people from across history forms outside; talking to Florence and Tao at the end of the line will end the dream. In unused cutscenes and the cut ending, Spoiler:the naked boy evolves into the Dragon as he heals more monsters, and is eventually killed by the Hero, who he acknowledges is himself.
Originally, The End was supposed to have a boss battle in the same fashion as the other Titans from the main story, but it was changed into a shoot-'em-up style battle due to the approaching deadline during development. It is possible however that the revamped boss battle against The End in The Final Horizons DLC Expansion was meant to revisit the original plan, as it more closely resembles the Titan boss fights than The End's fight in the base game.
A sequel to MySims Agents called MySims Agents 2 was planned, but was ultimately shelved in Fall 2009. Years later on May 12, 2023, designer Brian Kaiser shared an old completed story outline for the game on his Twitter account. Based on the outline, the plot would have revolved around the player investigating a series of strange events involving an unknown energy source (later revealed to be seeping through portals from the Nightmare Realm), all while contending with the new S.P.A. director Morgan (a reworked version of the scrapped character Vice Admiral Morgan from MySims Kingdom) and her advisors Dragomir and Svetlana (reused from MySims SkyHeroes), who has shut down several branches of the agency as part of "restructuring" and captured Walker after he began to investigate them. Several characters from the original game would have returned, with Roxie Road, Jenny, Dr. F, Buddy, and Vic Vector all being part of the player's team as they solve cases all over the globe. While full gameplay details are unknown (aside from a new grapple hook mechanic), some pieces of concept art have been released since, such as designs for Morgan's various monster forms.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future was originally released as JoJo's Venture in December 1998. This version suffered from a rushed development, reflected by the abundance of unused assets in its code, including both finished and unfinished sprites for various attacks, cutscenes, and HUD elements. An updated version would come out eight months later, this time using the series' full title and adding the Heritage for the Future subtitle. A significant chunk of the unused assets in JoJo's Venture would be polished up and incorporated in this newer version.
To avoid loading everything in memory when the player visits the HQ, recruitable agents are given separate archives for their models. Several Sims who are not recruitable have separately stored models in addition to their regular map models, suggesting they were intended to be recruitable at some point. The Sims in question are Chef Gino, Ol' Gabby, Barney Cull, Dr. F, DJ Candy, Alexa Lexington, Chaz McFreely, Chef Watanabe, Justice, Tim (whose files were used in an earlier build of the game), and Proto-Makoto (a character who was scrapped from the game entirely).
Faith Connors from Mirror's Edge and Natasha Volkova from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 were planned to appear in the game as guest characters, but were both scrapped for unknown reasons. Despite this, Faith makes a cameo as a picture on the wall of Gal Force 4's base, and Natasha has leftover files in the game, suggesting that she was cut late in development. Additionally, artwork exists of an old man character who would have appeared in the game as a member of Crescent Moon, but was also scrapped.
The game's data contains an unused red version of the Squeaker enemy, which acts as a more mobile variant of the green Squeaker. These red Squeakers are present not only in isolation, but also in some of the game's similarly inaccessible debug rooms. Given that they are fully coded and that red Squeakers are only normally visible in the Squeak Squad's introductory cutscene and in the Smash Ride sub-game, this implies that they were removed from the main game's levels relatively late into development.
Originally, an island known as Shipwreck Cove (designed by producer Jason Kim) was going to appear in the game, with much of its data remaining in the game files. Despite how finished the remaining materials look, designer Brian Kaiser claimed that the developers did not get very far into production on it. The full level layout can be found in the unused data, meaning that the island can be stitched together using several models. Four NPCs were intended to appear on the island, those being Vice Admiral Morgan, Neema, Theodore, and Mira (who would later be reworked into Mira Cull, the daughter of series regular Barney Cull in MySims SkyHeroes; it's unknown if she was intended to be related to him in this game). Additionally, five music tracks related to the island are also in the game files, the names of which suggest that planned landmarks for the island include a Pirate Lighthouse, Mira's House, and Neema's Shack.
Originally, Donatello's Super Move was intended to be slightly different. Instead of driving the Turtle Van and shooting lasers at opponents with the other 3 Turtles, he would've perched atop the van alone, remote in hand, and rammed opponents directly.
The choice to include a train as the primary mode of transportation was inspired by a book Eiji Aonuma read to his son, "The Tracks Go On" by Fumiko Takeshita and Mamoru Suzuki. In this book, children lay down tracks for a train as it progresses across the countryside. A year of the game's two-year development time was spent working on the ability to lay down tracks before the feature was ultimately cut.
According to Takaya Imamura in a 2002 interview with Nintendo Dream, a lot of time was spent between Rare and Nintendo brainstorming on what kind of equipment and weaponry Fox should have during the transition from Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox Adventures. Imamura wanted Fox to use a gun, similar to his original EAD-created prototype of Star Fox Adventures before it was merged with Dinosaur Planet. However, this was not well suited for the Zelda-esque framework established by Dinosaur Planet, so this was abandoned and they embarked on a long period of trial-and-error to determine what weapon Fox should use. 
The initial release of the arcade version features unused character biographies for the game's playable cast. These biographies are facetious in nature, for instance claiming that Shinnok was an ex-model for the Bicycle brand of playing cards and that Scorpion's mission in life is to scold a friend for punching him when he was a child. The joking nature of these biographies likely contributed to their disabling in the original build and outright removal from the game's code in subsequent updates. Examining the biographies through hacking the game shows that two of them are unfinished. Fujin is referred to as "Windgod" and Noob Saibot's biography is mostly recycled from Raiden's, with the only original portion being the cut-off opening line.
A sequel to MySims Agents called MySims Agents 2 was planned, but was ultimately shelved in Fall 2009. Years later on May 12, 2023, designer Brian Kaiser shared an old completed story outline for the game on his Twitter account. Based on the outline, the plot would have revolved around the player investigating a series of strange events involving an unknown energy source (later revealed to be seeping through portals from the Nightmare Realm), all while contending with the new S.P.A. director Morgan (a reworked version of the scrapped character Vice Admiral Morgan from MySims Kingdom) and her advisors Dragomir and Svetlana (reused from MySims SkyHeroes), who has shut down several branches of the agency as part of "restructuring" and captured Walker after he began to investigate them. Several characters from the original game would have returned, with Roxie Road, Jenny, Dr. F, Buddy, and Vic Vector all being part of the player's team as they solve cases all over the globe. While full gameplay details are unknown (aside from a new grapple hook mechanic), some pieces of concept art have been released since, such as designs for Morgan's various monster forms.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future was originally released as JoJo's Venture in December 1998. This version suffered from a rushed development, reflected by the abundance of unused assets in its code, including both finished and unfinished sprites for various attacks, cutscenes, and HUD elements. An updated version would come out eight months later, this time using the series' full title and adding the Heritage for the Future subtitle. A significant chunk of the unused assets in JoJo's Venture would be polished up and incorporated in this newer version.
The game's data contains an unused red version of the Squeaker enemy, which acts as a more mobile variant of the green Squeaker. These red Squeakers are present not only in isolation, but also in some of the game's similarly inaccessible debug rooms. Given that they are fully coded and that red Squeakers are only normally visible in the Squeak Squad's introductory cutscene and in the Smash Ride sub-game, this implies that they were removed from the main game's levels relatively late into development.
