History Main / OrphanedReference

*** Marty stepping on manure after arriving in 1885 Hill Valley was going to be followed with Marty involuntarily throwing some of that manure to Tannen while BulletDancing, which would enrage him, and culminate with Tannen being thrown on a manure cart at the end (presumably making the line "I hate manure" a MeaningfulEcho to that scene and not just to ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII''). After the second manure appearance was changed to a spittoon (stunt coordinator Walter Scott, who actually had grown up in the rural areas of the west, and actually moved his family out there, pointed out to that in the old west, people frequently got covered in manure all the time and never complained at all, whereas the spittoon would provoke a more disgusted reaction), the other manure scenes became isolated events with no relation.

* "WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce": In the episode [[Recap/AquaTeenHungerForceS9E5TheGraniteFamily The Granite Family]], Shake tries to get a reboot of a [[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Flintstones]] parody. This episode was made to parody the announcement of a Creator/SethMacFarlane reboot of The Flintstones, but the reboot entered DevelopmentHell and never happened, rendering the episode borderline incomprehensible when watching it today.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E1Castrovalva "Castrovalva"]], the newly-regenerated Fifth Doctor mentions sensing an malevolent presence at the center of the Tardis. This would've been followed up on later in the season, but the planned story ("The Enemy Within" by Christopher Priest) got dropped, leaving the reference sticking out as an odd aside.

*** From the same episode, the exchange between the Doctor and Rose near the end of the episode (Rose: "Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas!" Doctor: "Who says I'm not, red-bicycle-when-you-were-twelve?" Rose: [[FlatWhat "What."]]) is the remnant of a dropped storyline that would've revealed that the Doctor had been secretly using time travel to alter Rose's life in order to mold her into the perfect companion.

* If one looks closely at certain scenes in ''Film/FrankensteinMeetsTheWolfMan'', the Monster's lips can be seen moving. Originally, the Monster had spoken dialogue, but all the lines were removed in post-production, leaving these brief bits of lip movement as the only remnant of it in the final movie.

** Series 13's "Record The Best Multi-Track Song About Your Team" where the men's team references Chris Ramsey feeding Ardal O'Hanlon an aubergine. This is referencing a challenge only the men ended up doing, where one had to transfer an aubergine across a field, which Alex decided to cancel before the women did it because he hadn't considered the UnfortunateImplications of women playing with aubergines.

* ''Film/TheWorldOfSuzieWong'''s eponymous heroine speaks in broken English - which comes from her original actress France Nuyen having limited English (and having to learn her lines phonetically). [[TheOtherMarty Midway through filming she was replaced]] with Creator/NancyKwan - who spoke perfect English.

** ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone''. Early on, Creator/SteveKloves felt that Harry needed a sounding board in the scenes with the Dursleys so that audiences would hear his inner thoughts, which were expressed through internal dialogue in the book. Therefore, Kloves decided to give him a pet spider named Alastair and an army of broken toy soldiers, both of which he would be portrayed as talking to. The concept was later cut, but a shot of Harry playing with toy soldiers survives in the eventual film.

** ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone''. Early on, Creator/SteveKloves felt that Harry needed a sounding board in the scenes with the Dursleys so that audiences would hear his inner thoughts, which were expressed through internal dialogue in the book. Therefore, Kloves decided to give him a pet spider named Alastair and an army of broken toy soldiers. These were later cut, but a shot of Harry playing with toy soldiers survives in the eventual film.

** There is a questline in which you can receive the Haurchefaunt emote which makes you do a huge grin. This was a behavior Haurchefaunt would do when he's excited to see the player character in a cutscene that was removed from non-Japanese versions to make him look less like the ChivalrousPervert he was supposed to be.

** In the unaired pilot, Chef's plan to get the boys out of school is to get them to eat his extra-hot tamales to trick the school nurse into thinking they have fevers. However, the fifth graders show up and dare Cartman to eat all the tamales on his own, which causes him to start farting fire and gets the nurse to send them all home. In the [[Recap/SouthParkS1E1CartmanGetsAnAnalProbe broadcast version]], Chef's plan is simplified to pulling the fire alarm and Cartman's flammable flatuence is turned into a side-effect of his anal probe. Despite this, the next scene still has Kyle telling Cartman "You can stop farting fire now", even though it no longer played a part in getting the boys out of school.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': The episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS1E5AnElephantMakesLoveToAPig An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig]]" has a scene where Stan is lying down in a puddle of water. This is a reference to a deleted scene where his sister Shelley set him on fire and threw a bucket of water to douse the flames, only for her to repeat the process over and over again.

** Several missions gave you hints on what to do, such as loading [[ActionBomb Goblin Sappers]] into [[DeathFromAbove Zeppelins]] or [[DropTheHammer throw a Storm Bolt]] at a mechanical ship. Being major {{Game Breaker}}s, this was removed in the expansion, and trying it with the expansion installed gets an error message even as the hint is being displayed.

** Similar ot the above, [[spoiler:Doflamingo's]] codename "Joker" comes from him originally being conceived as an ally/subordinate of Kaidou, fitting in with his other henchmen's card game-themed names.

** While not enough to call a DubInducedPlotHole, there is changes in the translation that don't quite gel with the actual motivations and gameplay of Pontiff Sulyvahn and Aldrich. In the original japanese Sulyvahn is a greedy, power obsessed madman using Cathedral of the Deep to assume control of Irithyll and Anor Londo, and is forced to cede Anor Londo to Aldrich when he loses to him. That's why Irithyll has so little of the Deep's influence because he just got back and why he has tattered clothes, enters the fight acerbically but gets instantly aggressive when you approach him. As the english translation made them a BigBadDuumvirate, many of these little details are off but not full plot holes.

** At the end of the game, when Kim describes your behaviour to Jean, he will tell him you ''haven't been drinking in the past week'' if you either 1) have not used alcohol ever in the game, or 2) have the Thought "Wasteland of Reality" internalised - even if you ''had'' used alcohol before (or even after) you did that. Considering the level of DevelopersForesight in play, this seems like a weird inconsistency. This is because, [[DummiedOut earlier in development]], the "Wasteland of Reality" Thought would be gained if the player did not drink in the first two days of the game, then agreed with Endurance to carry on being sober - so it wouldn't have been possible to have internalised the "Wasteland of Reality" thought if you had used alcohol. In the finished game, "Wasteland of Reality" is earned by agreeing with one of two NPC characters that you need to quit drinking, which is more forgiving to players who wanted to experiment with alcohol before discarding it, but also means Kim's line is a [[OutOfCharacterMoment seemingly out-of-character lie]].

** Towards the end of the game, One of the Warriors of The Dark makes a speech about how light used to exist around a core of darkness and now darkness exists around a core of light. In context this seems to refer to the Cloud of Darkness being a YinYangBomb. However, this is actually a reference to the backstory's Flood of Light, and describing how the Sun used to revolve around the Earth until it happened and reversed the relationship. This was primarily exposited by Doga and Desch, but the cuts mean that only a single reference from the latter, a mention on how the Floating Continent will be "flung away from the sun" if the Tower of Owen's reactor fails, survived.

** The optional Memoria boss Hades has a lot of eye imagery on his design - which resembles the motifs found in Terra and Memoria. This is left over from when Hades was planned to be the final boss, but he was replaced with Necron late in development.
** Mt Gulug uses a remixed version of the theme of Gurgu Volcano from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI''. This is because Gurgu was mistranslated as 'Gulug'.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' features a localization-only example. In a base conversation explaining the weapon forging system, the merchants mention selling unneeded weapons for scrap metal, and offer to not charge you for the materials of the first forged weapon you make. In the Japanese version, forging weapons required "forging points" in addition to gold, and these were obtained by selling weapons. The English version decided to remove the forging points mechanic entirely, but didn't alter this conversation. Similarly, the description of the Silver Card item (buy items at half price) says "Does not earn any Training Points" in the English version, which is a reference to an ObviousRulePatch on the item in the Japanese version (otherwise you could get infinite forging points by buying a weapon, selling it, buying it again for the same price, repeat) that is meaningless with the system removed.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses''

** The briefing for the Frigate mission says that Xenia Onatopp is on the boat, but the player never encounters her here (she was also on the boat in the movie, but Bond never ran into her there either).

** In ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'', Much of the {{Foreshadowing}} for [[spoiler:Cortana's FaceHeelTurn]] was cut from the dialogue of ''Halo 4''. Had those lines remained, there would have been a much more gradual build-up for [[spoiler:Cortana's feelings regarding the underutilization of AI and their treatment by humanity]].

** The option at the end of the game to give a Time Piece to Mustache Girl notes that if you do so, Hat Kid's ship may not have enough power to get back home. Nothing comes of this, as it is a leftover set-up for [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the game's original True Ending where Hat Kid grows up.]]

** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwordsAdventures Four Swords Adventures]]'' was meant to be a prequel to ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]'' and feature the [[GreatOffscreenWar Imprisoning War]] before Miyamoto nixed that idea late in development and ''Literature/HyruleHistoria'' would officially put the two games in different timelines. Besides the graphical style and the soundtrack of ''Four Sword Adventure'' that pay homage to ''A Link to the Past'', the final game still has references to the original plan such as the origin story of Ganon's Trident, the presence of the Knights of Hyrule and the last level being the Dark World. DummiedOut dialogues also mention the Master Sword.

** A screenshot from the boxart of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' is from a beta version and displays the scrapped Magic Meter. This also explains the [[UselessItem otherwise useless]] Green Chu Jelly you can get by killing a Green Chu in the Cave of Ordeals in the Wii version of the game.
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'', Link acquires the Sheikah Slate at the beginning of the game; a tablet-like device which gives him access to his rune powers and the game's map in-universe. The Sheikah Slate was envisioned when the game was still a Wii U exclusive with significant gamepad integration; the player would be able to quickly switch between runes and look at the map on the gamepad without pausing, making the Sheikah Slate a DiegeticInterface for those functions within the game. When ''Breath of the Wild'' was ported to the Switch, the gamepad functionality was completely gutted, but the Sheikah Slate was so integral to the game's design by that point that it stuck around, just without the obvious parallel to the gamepad.

* The instruction manual for the Nintendo 64 port of ''[[Videogame/MortalKombat3 Mortal Kombat Trilogy]]'' erroneously described Rain as a human former member of the Lin Kuei who had become a mercenary, even though the character was stated to be an Edenian [[TheQuisling aligned with Shao Kahn]] in ''Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3''. This was originally the bio for Tremor, a cut character who was later repurposed for the ill-fated ''Videogame/MortalKombatSpecialForces'' spin-off.

* ''VideoGame/PacGuy'': The first episode of the second entry of the series has Pac-Guy fighting against the [=BORD=], a parody of the Borg from Franchise/StarTrek. Their presence is oddly inconsistent, with their ship being destroyed after the third stage, and actual [=BORD=] only being fought in the seventh stage, with [[RandomEventsPlot most other stages seemingly being completely unrelated to them]] (a few do try to tie them in with flavour text though), before their ship makes an UnexplainedRecovery, and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard their king blows himself up]], after which the entire faction vanishes for the rest of the series. Their oddly inconsistent presence is a remnant of the game's original plan to be a full Star Trek parody, [[CreatorBreakdown a plan that lost focus when series creator Brian Quarfoth lost his grandfather during the game's development]].

** The Raichu trade in the Cinnabar research building in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' was a combination of this and a translation gaffe. The guy says that the Raichu you traded him went and evolved. Though it sounds like a reference to the scrapped Gorochu, it’s actually because the Japanese versions had a Kadabra as the Pokémon being traded. It appears the translators just translated the dialogue without realizing the Pokémon species had been changed.
** Trainer classes like the Rocket Grunts, Tamer, and a couple others having whips in their sprites was a holdover from scrapped ideas about trainers fighting after all their Pokémon fainted.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'': The Hall of Origin is an [[DummiedOut unused]] location where you can find (and catch) ''[[OlympusMons Arceus]],'' which was meant to be accessed via the Azure Flute, an event item that was never distributed because it was thought to be [[GuideDangIt too confusing to use.]] However, the Wonder Card for the [[MilestoneCelebration 20th Anniversary Arceus distribution]], nine years later, explicitly mentions that "Arceus could first be encountered in the Hall of Origin in ''Diamond and Pearl''".
** ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' has an NPC in Castelia City named Mr. Lock, the "magical clown who can open anything." He has no function in the final game, but he was supposed to be part of a scrapped download event that would've started in ''[=HeartGold=]'' and ''[=SoulSilver=]''. The event would give players an item called the Lock Capsule, which could be transferred to BW via the Relocator, where Mr. Lock would open it, giving the player [=TM95=] Snarl. The event was never released, not even in Japan, so Snarl remained an elusive DummiedOut move, until ''Black 2'' and ''White 2'' gave the Snarl TM through normal means.

** When you meet Angela on Grelbin, she mentions [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Yeedil]] having "nasty orbital defenses". This was meant to tie in to a final Star Explorer level that occurred there, but in the final game the orbital defenses are nil and you can just land on Yeedil without hazard.

* ''VideoGame/{{Rayman}}''
** In ''VideoGame/Rayman1'', there are bonus levels where you pay ten tings to The Magician to have a chance at an extra life. However, if you look at Rayman's sprite while paying, he's clearing handing over ''Electoons'' rather than tings. Originally, Rayman was to [[https://youtu.be/W4VN-nHzyEk?t=3341 give Electoons to The Magician in exchange for a scroll]], but while this was changed the sprite work was never redone.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'':
** The original had an entire subplot dedicated to the architect behind the Spencer Mansion, George Trevor, which was completely scrapped from the game, though the developers left his (now nameless) tombstone to be found after defeating Yawn the Snake. His entire subplot was restored in the 2002 UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube remake.
** Similarly, numerous additional areas were all planned that weren't able to be included due to [[RealLifeWritesThePlot limited disk space]] and never actually saw the light of day. The only remnant of these was during a pre-rendered cutscene where you can catch a glimpse of the door on the entryway stairs that would have led to the graveyard which is missing in the actual game. Again, like Trevor's subplot, these areas (and then some) were restored in the remake.
** The description of the Colt Python informs you it is loaded with "magnum" rounds, implying there to be different kinds of ammunition like the Bazooka. While there ''are'' fully functional "Dum Dum" rounds in the game, they were DummiedOut and are only accessible by hacking them into the inventory, and were meant to be slightly more powerful against zombies but weaker against other enemies. The beta and demo versions show that the Magnum originally worked like a somewhat stronger Beretta, able to kill most enemies in 2-3 shots but occasionally scoring a OneHitKill against zombies; in the final release, they simply gave the Magnum a huge buff to let it one-shot zombies from the get-go, as well anything else that isn't a boss, and dropped the dum dums for being redundant. Oddly, the 2002 remake contains the same description on the weapon, and the same fully functional but dummied-out rounds.
** There is a bed in the 2002 Remake that, when examined, informs you there are footprints that appear to pass right through it. Rumor is there was originally an escape route that came out from under the bed that was ultimately scrapped. A common FanWank is that the mansion is riddled with secret passages only accessible by Wesker and this is one of them.
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' has Sherry remark that she can hear "the monster", a mutated version of her father, calling her name. Originally William was to be able to speak but this was DummiedOut, instead leaving fans to wonder if perhaps he was able to speak before they showed up or if Sherry was just imagining it. The remake expands on this by having his roars very vaguely sound like he's screaming for her, and adding gestures and body language like clutching his head that make it clear he's still somewhat conscious and [[FightingFromTheInside trying to resist the influence of the G-Virus]] (you also hear roars that sound somewhat like "help me" as well).

** In ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'', Shadow proclaiming "This is who I am" in every single ending would have made more sense if they had kept the original theme for the game. Alas, ExecutiveMeddling by the band's producer prevented Sega from using "Who I Am" by Magna-Fi, leading to "I am... All of Me" by Crush 40 becoming the game's theme at the last minute.

** The large [[AsianFoxSpirit kitsune]] and {{tanuki}} statues in Inkopolis Plaza are holdovers from when the game focused on Asian mythology (including {{Moon Rabbit}}s, who served as the player characters - this is also why the moon tends to be so prominent during Splatfests). When the focus shifted to evolved sea creatures, and cephalopods in particular, the statues remained.
* There were two different versions of ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: DoubleAgent'', one on sixth-generation consoles like the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube and one on PC and seventh-generation consoles like the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3, each with distinctly different plots and some characters that are InNameOnly to one another. Only the seventh-generation version features Enrica Villablanca's AntiVillain qualities that make her sympathetic and her budding friendship/romance with Sam, [[spoiler:but both games have Sam's fierce objection to killing her and his HeroicBSOD when she dies. This makes it seem completely out of character and out of nowhere when Sam suddenly cares immensely about her well-being in the sixth-generation version. Ironically, the game where she ''does'' have these qualities is also the game where framing her for the failure of the cruise ship explosion is an option (and the canonical events, no less), and doing this has Sam stand by and watch her get shot in the head without even flinching.]]

** [[VideoGame/SpyroTheDragon1998 The first game]]'s manual has a [[http://spyro.france.free.fr/contenu/artworks/04.jpg picture of a dragon]] that never shows up in the actual game and is often assumed to be the intended father of Spyro due to being purple and having similar spiral-y horns and tail.
** ''VideoGame/Spyro2RiptosRage'': One NPC accidentally calls Cloud Temples by its original name "Mystic City". This was corrected in the remake.

* The 2003 game of ''VideoGame/{{The Hobbit|2003}}'' originally featured a boss fight with a cave troll near the end of "Over Hill and Under Hill", which was scrapped, although references to it are found throughout the level.

* ''[[VideoGame/WarCraft WarCraft III]]'':

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E25WhoShotMrBurnsPartOne Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part One]]", [[ScaleModelDestruction Mr. Burns stomps on scale models of Springfield landmarks]], saying "Take that, Bowl-A-Rama [Barney's Bowl-A-Rama]! Take that, convenience mart [Kwik-E-Mart]! [[VandalismBackfire Take that, nuclear power plan- Oh, fiddlesticks]].". [[WhatCouldHaveBeen The producers originally intended to have Barney Gumble be the one who shot Mr. Burns]], so Burns stomping on Barney's Bowl-A-Rama was meant to foreshadow this.

* In the original release version of ''VideoGame/AHatInTime'', the Mafia Boss's pre-fight dialogue included a line about how he hadn't seen a Time Piece in over a hundred years, an odd detail that was never brought up again and raised more questions than it answered. This was likely a leftover from the game's scrapped TimeTravel mechanics -- the player would have originally been able to visit the game's stages across different time periods, including a version of Mafia Town in the distant past. Without that context, the line no longer made sense and so was quickly patched out.
** The option at the end of the game to give a Time Piece to Mustache Girl notes that if you do so, Hat Girl's ship may not have enough power to get back home. Nothing comes of this, as it is a leftover set-up for [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the game's original True Ending where Hat Kid grows up.]]

* WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}}: The [[https://youtu.be/LQzvo6KUk9M highlights video]] for Vinny's New York City Bus Simulator stream has a segment where he goes exploring the game's rendition of Times Square, poking fun at all the [[BlandNameProduct legally distinct store names]] scattered throughout. When he comes across an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Stone_Creamery "Old Con Creamery"]], a piece of fanart is shown of him being served some disgusting-looking ice cream while an offscreen clerk cheerfully informs him "I'll be four dollars!". That last bit was a reference to a similar mistake in the subtitles when Vinny [[https://youtu.be/RWazu5omXzA?t=2978 tried to order a beer]] later in the stream, but that part ended up getting cut from the highlight reel.