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.
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.
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!"
According to designer Shiro Maekawa, there were originally going to be six teams with very different line-ups. Two of the teams, Team Sonic and Team Chaotix, had the same members as they appear in the final game, but the four early teams include:
• Amy, Cream and Rouge • Chaos, E-102 Gamma and Big • Fang, Bean and Bark • Metal Sonic, Ray and Mighty
Due to time constraints and balancing purposes, the number of teams was reduced from six to four, and the members of Team Dark and Team Rose were swapped and adjusted after it was decided that Shadow Spoiler:would not be dead after the events of Sonic Adventure 2.
In a 2002 developer interview archived by the now-defunct blog GSLA, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that the game's staff originally came up with ten different nozzles for FLUDD, devising new ones for each possible situation Mario might encounter. However, this was reduced to three to avoid similarities to the gameplay style of The Legend of Zelda series. Some remnants of this larger quantity can be found in the final game's data, which includes an unused model for a Yoshi head nozzle and parameters for a sniper nozzle. While the former's properties are unknown beyond its appearance (with its model lacking any associated animations), the latter would have been 100 times more powerful than the Squirt Nozzle and would've had a significantly larger hitbox. However, it also would've required Mario to charge it like the Rocket Nozzle and Turbo Nozzle.
In a 2002 staff interview with Nintendo Dream, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that FLUDD was inspired by his memories of playing with water guns as a kid, an image that he recalled upon first using the analog L & R triggers on the GameCube's controller. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto further explained that the concept behind FLUDD was controversial among Nintendo's staff due to Mario not being widely associated with these kinds of tools, though Luigi's use of the Poltergust in Luigi's Mansion ultimately served as a precedent in the concept's favor.
In the same interview, Takashi Tezuka stated that Nintendo went to great lengths to keep FLUDD from resembling a firearm, both due to Koizumi finding a water gun "too simple" and due to concerns that guns (or anything that audiences may interpret as such) would be inappropriate for the franchise's public image. The "weird backpack thing" that FLUDD ultimately ended up as addressed both concerns at once, with Koizumi likening it to firefighting equipment and "a [plastic] bottle water rocket toy."
According to an Electronic Gaming Magazine interview (published in Issue #224, January 2008) with Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells and the game's director Amy Hennig, they were asked if they ever had plans for a different final boss battle after the interviewer expressed disappointment with it. Wells stated that the boss battle was designed to fit within the confines of the island and world they created, and that they could have made it more elaborate if they had a few extra weeks, but the overall direction remained consistent with their original plan. Hennig added that many games face the issue of jumping-the-shark at the end, as they need to escalate to a climax. She contrasted this with movies, which "get away with less" as they focus more on narrative and emotional experiences, and suggested that game design might benefit from shifting away from traditional boss battles to creating peaks in the overall experience.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit was originally going to be a novelty 16-bit SNES-style cartridge game before slowly venturing out into a full-fledged modern PC and console game. Many of the early 16-bit sprites and animations can still be found in the game files.
Drill Dozer marked the first time Ken Sugimori directed a game since Pulseman eleven years earlier in 1994. In a 2005 Nintendo Dream interview, he revealed that due to the increasing amount of content and collaboration required in making modern games and much of Game Freak's newer staff only having experience in the Pokémon series, he was prompted to place his full trust in the younger staff for most of the gameplay development as he realized he was not as young as he used to be. Sugimori scaled back his efforts to focus on drawing art for the game while character designs were done by Hironobu Yoshida. He also noted that Drill Dozer gave him an opportunity incorporate ten years worth of ideas from previous games that went unused due to memory constraints or deadlines, and felt they succeeded, which gave him a sense of relief.
The game's data contains unused sprites for Faraway Town's enemies depicting them with various emotional effects. As Faraway Town characters can't be made to feel emotions in-battle in the final game, this implies that the restriction was implemented relatively late into development.
The E3 2007 build of the Xbox 360 release revealed that the home console versions were originally meant to have cutscenes fully animated in 3D. A workprint containing these cutscenes shows a mix of finished and unfinished 3D renders and storyboards with placeholder voice acting, with the final game having cutscenes primarily animated in the same 2D digital animation as the show. The Nintendo DS version of the game is the only version that exclusively uses 3D cutscenes.
This build also reveals that the identity of the "sleazy video game producer" featured in Level 5: Mob Rules is Larry Probst, the former CEO of Electronic Arts from 1991-2007 whose name was censored from the script in the final game.
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.
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!"
In a 2002 developer interview archived by the now-defunct blog GSLA, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that the game's staff originally came up with ten different nozzles for FLUDD, devising new ones for each possible situation Mario might encounter. However, this was reduced to three to avoid similarities to the gameplay style of The Legend of Zelda series. Some remnants of this larger quantity can be found in the final game's data, which includes an unused model for a Yoshi head nozzle and parameters for a sniper nozzle. While the former's properties are unknown beyond its appearance (with its model lacking any associated animations), the latter would have been 100 times more powerful than the Squirt Nozzle and would've had a significantly larger hitbox. However, it also would've required Mario to charge it like the Rocket Nozzle and Turbo Nozzle.
The game's data contains unused sprites for Faraway Town's enemies depicting them with various emotional effects. As Faraway Town characters can't be made to feel emotions in-battle in the final game, this implies that the restriction was implemented relatively late into development.
