In the Youtube Channel of Cshit87 we can see a couple of interesting videos about some beta characters that have been found still in the game code.
Darkel
Darkel is a character dropped during the development of Grand Theft Auto III. Little is known about the character, except that he was to be a revolutionary urchin who vowed to bring down the city’s economy. One mission involved stealing an ice cream van, using it to attract pedestrians, then blowing it up. This mission was given by El Burro in the final version of game, to kill a group of gang members. Darkel was also originally expected to give out Rampage-esque missions.
Darkel had his voice recorded for this part by Bill Fiore, but was never used in game. However, the character remains listed in GTA III’s manual’s credits, as well as having a character texture retained in the game’s data files. The official GTA III website suggests that Darkel was to reside in the Harbour Tunnel that runs underneath a portion of Portland. [Info from Wikipedia]
Novy
Who’s Novy? Novy was the original protagonist before Claude. But just like Darkel, novy was dropped out of the final version. He was discovered and put in-game by Ka-Boom.
Screenshots from beta version of the game
Esperanto
Old beta footages
