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 rerelease 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.
The human characters featured in the MSX and PC versions were changed to penguins in the Famicom version. This decision seems to have been made so the game could compete with other popular penguin games released in Japan at the time including Penguin Land, Antarctic Adventure, and Pengo.
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.
The graphics for the Neutral Zone are made up of bits and bytes of the actual program code for Yars' Revenge, laid out vertically, and counter-scrolling over each other. The game's creator Howard Scott Warshaw recalled in an interview with Digital Press that Atari feared showing the game's code on-screen would be a potential copyright violation, but Warshaw explained to them that "besides the scrolling, there was some X-Y and random color processing being done to it" to prevent the raw code from being displayed, stating that "if somebody could get the code from that, then they deserved it!" This same technique was employed by Retro Studios to create static noise textures during the development of the Nintendo GameCube game Metroid Prime.
According to artist Chris Neuman's portfolio website, an MMO based on the MySims series (tentatively referred to as "MySims Online MMO") was in development in 2009, with Neuman having served as the lead artist on the project. Based on the art shown and the description provided, it would have had character customization, an art style that provided a more "vinyl" look for the series cast, assets converted from the various Wii games, new and returning locations (such as Gino's Pizzeria from MySims Agents), and different minigames such as one taking place on a dance floor. Additionally, one of the art pieces shared featured several characters from throughout the MySims series (specifically Madame Zoe, DJ Candy, Chef Gino, Skip Rogers, Zack and Sapphire), suggesting that pre-existing characters were planned to appear here.
In 2010, development began on a MySims game for the Nintendo 3DS titled "MySims Friends", being made by Behaviour Interactive, the developers behind MySims Racing and MySims SkyHeroes. It would have featured extensive customization options (most notably the ability to customize the environment around you) and would have been an online-only game, requiring features such as StreetPass and Nintendo connectivity. It was cancelled after EA decided to move the The Sims franchise into a new direction, one that did not include the MySims series. Years later, art director Xavier Garcia would release pieces of concept art for the 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.
Naughty Dog's name was inspired by their first company mascot Morgan, a Labrador/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix born in 1989 who was the pet dog of co-founder Jason Rubin starting with the development of Rings of Power. During the development of Way of the Warrior, Morgan lived with both Rubin and co-founder Andy Gavin in poor living conditions and she was often fed some of their meals from the fast food chain McDonald's. While she first appeared in a game as a Special Thanks credit in Rings of Power, Morgan technically became part of the company when she was given her own photo ID card after Naughty Dog moved onto the Universal Interactive Studios premises for the development of Crash Bandicoot. She was credited as a member of Naughty Dog on their four Crash Bandicoot games and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. She died in 2002 at the age of 13 during the development of Jak II, and several tributes to her were put into Jak II and Jak 3.
Jak II's manual and end credits feature a standard In Memoriam dedication for Morgan, but there are two more hidden tributes in the game. There is a green neon sign spelling Morgan's name written in the Precurian language inside the Hip Hog Saloon located to the left from the door. Additionally, in the Power Station in New Haven City, a set of random scrolling Precurian messages can be found on the large computer monitor. Translating these to English will reveal the following:
• "Morgan I miss you" • "Morgan" • "Thirteen years hard time" • "There will never be another" • "Good dog" • "I will always love you"
Another message can be found on computer screens you can view at eye-level, which reads "Morgan is still missed even after a year has passed". These computer screen messages are re-used on the monitors in both the Power Station and the Freedom League buildings in Jak 3. Since Morgan's death, Naughty Dog have credited more pets as members of their team and/or company mascots, with the first successor being a Labrador puppy named Osiris who first appeared in the credits of the first Jak and Daxter game alongside Morgan.
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).
Two songs carried over from The Sims 2's "Pets" expansion, specifically "Fruit A Topia" and "The Sum of Six Sims", appear in the game files for the Create-A-Sim mode, likely being used as placeholders.
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.
Early concept art for the game depicts three costumes for Plok that were never implemented in the final product. One depicts Plok as a superhero, the second as a robot, and the third as a ninja.
In 2008, an animated series based on the MySims series was announced as part of a deal between Electronic Arts and the United Talent Agency to turn their games into motions pictures and television shows, alongside a film based on the The Sims series announced the year prior. However, while The Sims film has since received numerous updates on its development, the MySims series has not been acknowledged since, suggesting it was eventually cancelled.
All the playable characters were originally intended to have heartstruck expressions where they blush with hearts in their eyes, but only Bean's expression is used in the final game as a rare random object which Amy can drop using the special move "Heads Up!"
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.
Naughty Dog's name was inspired by their first company mascot Morgan, a Labrador/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix born in 1989 who was the pet dog of co-founder Jason Rubin starting with the development of Rings of Power. During the development of Way of the Warrior, Morgan lived with both Rubin and co-founder Andy Gavin in poor living conditions and she was often fed some of their meals from the fast food chain McDonald's. While she first appeared in a game as a Special Thanks credit in Rings of Power, Morgan technically became part of the company when she was given her own photo ID card after Naughty Dog moved onto the Universal Interactive Studios premises for the development of Crash Bandicoot. She was credited as a member of Naughty Dog on their four Crash Bandicoot games and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. She died in 2002 at the age of 13 during the development of Jak II, and several tributes to her were put into Jak II and Jak 3.
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.
Early concept art for the game depicts three costumes for Plok that were never implemented in the final product. One depicts Plok as a superhero, the second as a robot, and the third as a ninja.
All the playable characters were originally intended to have heartstruck expressions where they blush with hearts in their eyes, but only Bean's expression is used in the final game as a rare random object which Amy can drop using the special move "Heads Up!"