WMG / Super Mario 64 Beta Archive

Somebody drowned, either someone on the dev team or someone close to Eric or Meg.

Across the videos, water seems to be a reoccurring theme. The first instance was in the Developer Animation Showcase, with the Mario drowning animation that was made using human reference footage. In the Early Castle Grounds, the place is completely dried up, not even the lake still has it's water. Music Tape 2 shows a render of Mario halfway through the water, and Music Tape 3 shows that same render at the very end, maybe implying that someone met their very end in the water.