Soulstar was a Mega-CD game created by Core Design, and after its release, two seperate conversions were planned. One was a port to the Jaguar CD, under the same name, whereas the other was an updated version for the 32X, under the name Soulstar X. In the end, neither of them were released.
Rayman is a video game designed and published by Ubisoft. It was originally released in September 1995 for the Atari Jaguar and MS-DOS, and in November 1995 for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. A port of this game was to be released for the Sega 32X, but when the system died off due to low popularity, the port was canceled. Rayman is a traditional side-scrolling platform game which revolves around the titular character’s quest to save his world from the evil Mr. Dark.
Early in its development, Rayman was going to be about an eleven-year-old boy named Jimmy. Jimmy takes advantage of the realms that he discovers within his computer to create a fantasy world called Hereitscool. When evil invades Hereitscool, Jimmy turns into a superhero named Rayman to save Hereitscool. This idea was scrapped, and Rayman is his own being in his own world in the final version. There were a few comments in the story, such as “Sorry folks, this apparently can’t last. Do you want to play or what?”, but they were cut for the final version.
[Info from Wikipedia]
In these old screens from the back of the box from the Jaguar version, we can see some beta-differences.
beta rayman video: there is no sound and also the life icons are different. The life is in the top middle along with 8 life dots and instead of the orbs count you have a blue guys count but in the final version life count is in top left at the edge of the screen and the blue orbs in the top right rayman can also walk on his hands in this video (not sure about the final version).
Thanks to The_IT_08, Wilco and kieranmay for the contributions!
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Ultima Worlds Online: Origin – originally titled Ultima Online 2 – was to be the first sequel to the popular 1997 Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Ultima Online. Origin Systems revealed that they were developing Ultima Online 2 in September 1999 for release within a year or two, but development was cancelled in March 2001.
The game was to be set in Sosaria but in an alternate timeline where a cataclysm has collided the past, present and future of Sosaria into a single world, thus bringing Industrial Revolution and steampunk elements to the medieval fantasy world. Players would be able to choose from three playable races. Ultima Online 2, billed as a “2nd generation MMORPG”, was to improve upon Ultima Online and previous MMORPGs. The most noticeable advancement was the competitive 3D engine that replaced Ultima Online’s aging isometric view. The design also changed several aspects that players voiced dislike for in the first one. In Ultima Online 2, player vs. player combat was to be disabled by default (except in special areas, such as arenas). The title also would have emphasized grouping, including groups of 20-30 players, and reduced the ability of single players to become all-around grand-masters (i.e., prevent the notorious “tank-mage” characters that appeared in Ultima Online).
In March 2001, Electronic Arts, the parent company of Origin, announced that development on Ultima Worlds Online: Origin would cease in order to provide additional support for Ultima Online. Shortly after, EA announced it had laid off 200 employees including some at Origin Systems. EA feared that it would compete for subscribers with Ultima Online, which was still profitable and not showing signs of slowing down. About one-third of the team that worked on Ultima Online 2 joined Destination Games to work on Richard Garriott‘s MMORPG, Tabula Rasa.
Just a few years later, history repeated itself when EA cancelled Ultima X: Odyssey in 2004.
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Early in the development of World of Warcraft, when battlegrounds were made, there was a battleground called Azshara Crater. Azshara Crater would’ve been in – you guessed right – Azshara. It was intented to work in a similar fashion to Alterac Valley. A funny detail is that the entrances was already made when the battleground got cancelled, and is still in the final game. The entrance for the Alliance is south of the Forlorn Ridge and the entrance for Horde is north of Forlorn Ridge. Go check it out if you’re bored.
Even if the battleground wasn’t implented in the game, it’s still in the games files.
Left 4 Dead is a FPS with a strong coop mode, that was developed by Turtle Rock Studios and published by Valve for PC Windows and the Xbox 360 in 2008. The Left 4 Dead beta characters were changed, and at the Electronic Arts E3 2008 press conference, Valve revealed a new characters design for the survivors. As we can read on Wikipedia, Left 4 Dead underwent many phases of development; influenced by playtesting, Turtle Rock Studios removed many of the features that were originally in the game. Another significant element removed was a long introduction between campaigns; because the game is designed for replayability, it was difficult to hold the player’s attention for repeated viewings of cut scenes, so they were dropped in favor of a sparse narrative.
Also, the game started out with one big city design with many routes for the survivors, but playtesters were confused when they began to play, and later they always chose the same route; ultimately Turtle Rock Studios cut the city maps into the first “No Mercy” and “Dead Air” campaigns.
Here’s a comparison between the old characters (top) and the new ones (below):
As Nastykill has made us to notice, at the Official L4D Blog we can find a lot of interesting infos and screens / videos from the game development, like the early experiments with the lights in the backgrounds and some test cutscenes. Some more screenshots from an early build show the beta characterts and a couple of beta areas.
At Left 4 Dead Wikia we can read a lot of info about the game’s development.
Upgrades are a scrapped feature that can still be found hidden in the game’s code, but they can only be activated by using an hack command. Some of these upgrades are:
A small upgrade system is implemented in Left 4 Dead 2, including the Laser Sight originally meant for Left 4 Dead.
Originally the melee weapons were supposed to break after prolonged use, but the development team ultimately decided against it after testing. Break sounds for the Axe and Frying Pan weapons can still be found in the game files.
The Hunter has an unused animation of it hanging upside-down. The Hunter’s ability was originally to become invisible. It did this when backed up against a wall, then the pounce ability can be used. For some reason, it was cut to just leaping, possibly due to that Left 4 Dead tries to keep a realistic theme, and an invisible Infected may have simply been too far-fetched. It also could regenerate, but was cut along with the invisibility.
The original design of the Smoker was to “pop in” to the Survivor group in a cloud of smoke, seize any Survivor, and “pop out” again to leave the unlucky Survivor stranded. Valve changed the design, however, saying it was “too challenging for the players.” This design has never been seen in any video footage, suggesting that it was dropped early in development.
A later video shows that the player took something called “poison damage” from a Smoker. When a person was affected by poison damage, the damage inflicted would turn into temporary health.
The Screamer was a Special Infected in the early stage of game development, preceding the Witch and the Boomer’s vomit attack. The Screamer did not have any actual attacks: if agitated enough, it would run off to hide. Once hidden, it would let out a scream, attracting a horde, like the Boomer’s bile. It was therefore important to kill the Screamer as quickly as possible while it tried to run off.
Originally, the Witch was to attack the entire group upon being startled. However, this was cut from the final game because it was deemed too difficult as she would often wipe out the whole group with little trouble.
Originally, Valve intended Zoey and Francis to have a relationship, but this was deemed to be “distracting” by the play-testers. In her cut quotes, Zoey picks on him often [3]. Although their former relationship is no longer very evident, she still seems to be friendly towards him (“Groovy,” which was something he’d said before). In The Passing, she’s baffled by Rochelle showing an attraction to Francis, and claims she’s going to throw up. On the other hand, she finds it cute that Francis still has “that side of him” deep down despite his tough guy attitude when he flirts with Rochelle.
Thanks to DCodes7 and Ace.Dark for the contributions!
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