Eight legendary prototype versions of famous videogames

The study of unfinished artistic works has well-established and fascinating precedents in other mediums: Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger, Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Schubert's 8th symphony. These are all examples of famous works that were left unfinished by their original creator and have inspired countless scholars to study various drafts and notes to attempt to divine the author's original intent. In some cases friends and colleagues attempt to "finish" these works shortly after the author's death. In some cases, they are not finished until long after anyone who knew the original creator had long passed. When Edward Elgar died in 1934, he left behind hundreds of pages of sketches for a third symphony which were left untouched until 1998 when English composer Anthony Payne applied these sketches to a playable version of the symphony which has since received great acclaim.

Clearly a great deal of effort is put into the study of unfinished works in other mediums and only recently have videogames started to receive some attention in this area. Before a videogame is released it goes through alpha, beta and "release candidate" versions before reaching store shelves.  Each of these phases represents a period where the game is still incomplete and various aspects of the game are still being worked on. Often times these unfinished versions of the game offer intriguing differences from the final version. In most cases, it is merely different artwork, a lost character or level, or a different piece of music; but in some cases like prototype versions of Resident Evil 2, it is a different game entirely. Unfortunately, most of these prototypes are lost to history. However, sometimes there is still at least evidence of their existence in the way of screenshots or videos. In more rare cases, playable prototypes actually surface from underground channels for gamers to explore. Today, we will explore several prototypes that were significantly different than their retail cousins.

8. Resident Evil 3.5

Early previews of what would eventually become Resident Evil 4 show a game that is dramatically different than what would be the final version. What fans have taken to calling "Resident Evil 3.5" is the result of lead developer Shinji Mikami createing a game that was near completion and then completely scrapping it. The limited gameplay footage we have for this game shows a Resident Evil game with a much heavier focus on the supernatural than perhaps any previous games in the series. A video of this version of the game has surfaced on the web  showing multiple encounters with a ghost that has been dubbed "hookman" by fans as well as some creepy dolls.

7. Super Mario Brothers 2

The beta version of Super Mario Brothers 2 was just recently discovered and has a host of interesting changes from the final version. Some of the more intriguing things found include a lost piece of music that would actually resurface in Super Mario Brothers 3 and different ending and title screen. A weird change that will probably drive players crazy  in a "something's wrong but i can't put my finger on it" kind of way is that the character's eyes are just dots in this version.

6. Shenmue Saturn Version

The Shenmue project had a notoriously long and troubled development cycle. According to lead developer Yu Suzuki, the game's developmentt cost an unbelievable 70 million dollars to create, making it the most expensive game ever, even to this day. It is a little known fact that Shenmue actually started off as a Saturn game, the screenshots that have surfaced of this version show a game that looks impressive for the hardware it was running on. A video of the game in action is also out there.

5. Ico PSX Version

Another surprising example of a game that jumped consoles, this art house classic actually began it's life on the original Playstation before running into technical limitations with the hardware. The developers were left with the hard choice of canceling the game outright or moving it to the PS2.  The limited footage we have suggests a game that almost looks too good to have been running on the PSX.

4. Halo RTS

Although it would eventually go on to revolutionize the FPS genre on consoles, Halo famously started out it's life as an RTS. According to IGN, super early versions of Halo featured "a 3D RTS that lets you not only control far from above, but in a close third-person view. Obviously the team loved the action that was closer to the ground so much, it changed Halo completely."  In 2009 the Halo series would finally come full circle with the release of Halo Wars, a full-fledged RTS based on the Halo universe.

3. Sonic 2 beta

The Sonic 2 beta is probably the most famous and well-researched prototype ever with multiple websites religiously dedicated to it's study. After being stolen at a toy show in New York, years later a ROM would be leaked to the web through a Chinese Geocities page and it spread through the internet like wildfire.  It is legendary for having several incomplete levels that were missing from the final version of the game including "The Hidden Palace Zone", "The Wood Zone", and the "Genocide City Zone". The fans of this game have found all sorts of other new artwork in the game's files like new Sonic animations and new enemies. It is definitely noteworthy just for the surprising amount of differences between the prototype and the final game but the sheer obsession that it has become for some hardcore Sonic fans truly makes it a legend.

2. Bioshock

The amount of different content in early versions of Bioshock would be enough to fill an article by itself. Some of the more notable things left on the cutting room floor include a third Big Daddy type (pictured above), a Zoo level, and several more plasmids. One of the lost plasmids was teleportation which can be seen in the "Hunting the Big Daddy" video featured on Xbox Live Marketplace and elsewhere.  Advertisements for teleportation can even still be seen in the game. Another interesting change was that the gene bank in the retail version of the game was originally known as the Plasmiquik, for which a single advertisement still exists in the game at the beginning of Fort Frolic. If we turn further back in development, Rapture was originally a tropical island inhabited by nazis,  and the Little Sisters were originally sea slugs and later dogs in wheelchairs.

1. Resident Evil 1.5

No discussion of historic prototypes would be complete without the legendary Resident Evil 1.5. If there was ever a holy grail for enthusiasts on this subject, this would be it. After the breakout success of the first Resident Evil, lead developer Hideki Kamiya started work on a follow up. After nearly finishing the game (some say it was 80-90% complete), Kamiya stopped work completely and started from scratch. The lost game was almost completely different than the version of Resident Evil 2 with a different female lead, new environments, new enemies and new bosses. After years of precious little new information, a fairly long gameplay video finally surfaced, indicating that a private collector out there somewhere has a reasonably complete version of the game. There are fans who would love to see Capcom finish this game or even release what they have in playable form over Xbox Live or PSN. While this is a far-fetched hope, it is not unthinkable that hardcore fans will get their chance to play this game at some point in their lifetime.