History WhatCouldHaveBeen / Videogames

* ''{{Spore}}''. It originally had a much different interface, procedurally generated content for many more things, an underwater part, more complexity, more animal behaviors... * sob* Look at what everyone expected [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQvswZ39vq0 here]].

**** Ironically enough, the gameplay of what came to actually be ''Spore'' was pretty mediocre (at least in my opinion) shortly after finding the center of the universe of the Space stage. Much earlier for some, I suspect. Then again, I guess "mediocre" is better than "SoBadItsHorrible."
*** The underwater part was cut due to navigation issues and some bugs, but they're supposedly trying to put it back in.
*** Feh, fat chances now. Sims 3 was released not too long after Spore, and this troper firmly believes that work on Spore is done. Sims 3 attracted the general public and will receive all the attention now. Spore is an angel in the body of a red-headed bastard child of Maxis.

* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' falls prey to this a lot. One of the most clear examples is the ''WrathOfTheLichKing expansion's scrapped aspects. It was intended that there be a Gundrak raid and a third wing of Utgarde Keep, and Crystalsong forest was intended to be the home of the Argent Crusade tournament (as opposed to containing the floating city of Dalran and ''nothing else'') By far most painful, it was initially intended that the Underkingdom be an entire underground zone in which players would have significant interaction with Anu'barak, Arthas' third in command, and presumably deal with the sinister and desperate spider-like Nerbubians who used to rule most of Northrend. Instead, there are two dungeons. Anu'barak is the boss of the ''lower level one''. He has no effect on the game apart from that. And there are a grand total of ''three'' living Nerubians in the game, and only one of them even has a name. This is particularly odd given that they introduced tons of new races in Northrend, but gave no presence to the race that people had known was there since ''{{Warcraft}} 3'' came out in 2002.

** Likewise, the third game in the series was concieved as a platformer before becoming the [[GenreShift vechicle building game]] it is today. It would have been a semi-remake of the first game in the series, but with unexpected twists, such as the mountain in the first level erupting as a volcano. Unfortunately for Rare, [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks most fans would have greatly preferred that kind of game and it probably would have sold much better]].

* {{Duke Nukem Forever}}. Let us say no more...

** The Super Street Fighter IV artbook proves that Strider Hiryu was going to be an alternate outfit for Guy... WHAT THE HELL, CAPCOM?! Did you think we would prefer a slightly modified version of his Final Fight oufit?! It better be his second alternate...

** It was possible at one point to complete Tali's loyalty mission without ever seeing [[spoiler:the body of her father, Rael'Zorah]], and have others comment on the fact that he couldn't be found. In the final game, the sequence where you find [[spoiler:his]] body is mandatory.

* The entire FinalFantasy series could qualify for What Could Have ''Not'' Been: Squaresoft was about to fold when FF1 was released, so it's entirely possible that the entire series could have ''never existed.''

* {{Mother3}} initially began development as a particularly ambitious {{Nintendo64}} title with a bigger world and a longer storyline that was meant to focus on ten different main characters who would grow and develop over the course of ten years. Several characters from the GBA release were present, but with noticeably different designs: Flint had a BadassLongcoat, Duster seemed to be a parody of [[TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Link]], Kumatora's getup was surprisingly {{Stripperific}}, and DCMC had a female vocalist. The game would also incorporate the console's 64DD add-on, which would build on the game's replay value by including, among other things, an internal clock that would impact certain actions in-game. The commercial failure of the 64DD put a huge damper on the game's completion, as did the development team's inexperience with 3D games. The project was officially canned in 2000 after six years' worth of delays, but it was eventually retooled into a GameBoyAdvance release.

* Speaking of ''ResidentEvil'', [[ResidentEvil4 the second]] and [[ResidentEvil2 fourth games]] went through a number of iterations (respectively known as ''Resident Evil 1.5'' and ''3.5'' to fans and Capcom) before the developers finally settled on the final versions of each game.

* ''FinalFantasyVII'' had a ton of these. In the supplementary material books you can read up on about a dozen different drafts for almost every plot point and character in the game - naturally all of these books are Japan only and have no official translation. Here's just some of the plot points that weren't used: Sephiroth was originally going to be Aeris's brother, or maybe her lover, or both. Midgar was going to be the [[FinalFantasyTheSpiritsWithin real-world New York City]], or maybe a [[FinalFantasyXIII giant floating misshapen world in the sky]]. [[ParasiteEve Vincent Valentine was going to be a traveling Mulder-like detective researching bogus supernatural cases.]] Yuffie was going to be a bounty hunter. And there would have been Job Classes, too. Despite what you might be thinking: no, Aeris was always going to die.

*** ''Wind Waker'' itself had the last few dungeons DummiedOut due to time constraints and replaced with the tedious Triforce FetchQuest.

* ''TheLegendofZeldaTwilightPrincess'' originally had a different theme for the Twilight Realm, being in black and white rather than overcontrasted (the final version).

* ''Goldeneye 007'' was originally planned as an SNES game before being pushed over to the N64. Supposedly the original version was planned to be similar to DonkeyKongCountry, as well.
** The recently announced Goldeneye re-imagining for the Wii was going to be a HD remake on XBLA where you could switch between original and HD similar to the Monkey Island remakes.

** Sora was originally designed as a [[http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/kingdomhearts/images/d/de/Lion-Sora-Chainsaw.jpg monkey-type character]], reminiscent of [[FinalFantasyIX Zidane]].

**** Says him. This is one of the reason [[{{RAMChYLD}} this troper]] didn't bother with Spore when it was released. The other reason being the insanely draconian CopyProtection.

***I see what you did there.
** Additionally, Red XIII was originally intended to be the character who was cloned by Hojo, as opposed to Sephiroth. After defeating the clones, the party would have confronted the mad scientist and killed him earlier than they do in the actual game. This seems to suggest that Hojo wasn't originally as important to the plot as he eventually became.

* ''Super Mario World'' for the Super Nintendo had several elements that were deleted early on in its production. Originally released as a launch title for the system, the game was originally a starting point for the design team of ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' to adapt their work to a new system (and indeed, the game had the subtitle "Super Mario Bros. 4" up until very late in the development process, as evidenced by television commercials promoting the game). It would have originally taken place in a much smaller world (two islands, which looked to be similar versions of Donut Plains and Chocolate Island), and Lakitu and/or a blue sparrow would appear periodically and fly around Mario (though their purpose is still unknown). There would have been several areas where the player would have to dismount Yoshi (or have the dinosaur disappear). The beta of SMV also had sprites taken from the previous game (screenshots show that you could play as Raccoon Mario).

*Starcraft 2 could have been considerably different if Blizzard hadn't backtracked and made a game far closer to the original than what their initial concepts had been. Going by early fan suggestions, the game could have included just about 'anything'.