Cancelled Nintendo 64 Games

Perhaps the most famous of the cancelled N64 titles, Mother 3: Fall of the Pig King was the planned third instalment in the EarthBound series, written by Shigesato Itoi. Announced early in 1997, the game wasn't officially cancelled for over 3 years.

Development had begun on the SNES, but was moved to the Nintendo 64 format and officially announced for the 64DD in 1997. The story, as given at the time, was about a boy named Lucas searching for his missing father. In mid-1998, more screenshots were released showing Lucas and his twin brother Klaus, as well as some impressive graphics considering the system's limitations.

In 1999, the 64DD had still failed to appear, and it was confirmed the game had been shifted to cartridge format, with a planned "Mother 3.5" expansion disk available for the 64DD. Many new screenshots of the game focused on Flint, the father of Lucas and Klaus, as he investigates a UFO crash in Chimera Forest.

In August 2000, Shigesato Itoi finally confirmed that the game had been suffering from its fractured development and that the project was no longer in development for N64, nor was it planned for conversion to the GameCube.

However, in 2002, Shigesato Itoi once again spoke up to state that development had started again, this time on Game Boy Advance. The game was finally released in 2006 as Mother 3, featuring many elements from the original plan, but in the 2D sprite style of the earlier games.

Originally named Kirby Bowl 64 (the Japanese name of Kirby's Dream Course), Kirby's Air Ride was one of the earliest games shown for the Nintendo 64. The earliest screenshots showed Kirby rolling down hillsides as a ball, but along with the name change came a change in gameplay style: Kirby now raced around on Warp Stars.

The game was shown over a number of years before simply fading away without an official cancellation.

The game resurfaced in 2003 as Kirby Air Ride on the GameCube.

An ambitious Rare Action-RPG starring a human character named Edison who falls into trouble with Captain Blackeye and his pirates.

Unusually, the game received a number of changes throughout its development, from changing the lead character to dropping the RPG elements, and eventually Project: Dream emerged at the other end, unlikely as it seems, as Banjo-Kazooie.

Several elements from Project: Dream, including Captain Blackeye, make various cameo appearances through the Banjo-Kazooie series.

Unveiled at the same time as Banjo-Kazooie, Conker's Quest was planned as another cute character platformer, featuring impressive facial animations for its characters.

Conker himself was a cute squirrel who shortly after appeared in Diddy Kong Racing and Conker's Pocket Tales on Game Boy Color.

Rare had concerns that Conker's Quest would be lost in the torrent of cute character 3D platformers on the Nintendo 64, feeding the system's image as being "for kids". This led the game's producer, Chris Seavor, to take a different path. The game was rebuilt, featuring scatological and sexual cartoon humour and numerous spoofs of movies (including The Matrix, Aliens and Jurassic Park) and released as the Rare-published Conker's Bad Fur Day in 2001.

An ambitious action-adventure by Rare that starred two fox characters Sabre and Krystal as they rushed to prevent the evil General Scales from destroying Dinosaur Planet. Players could swap between the two characters as they explored different areas of the game world and restored the temples that hold the world together.

The game was unveiled at E3 2000 and Rare released official artwork and MP3s of the game's music on their website.

At the unveiling, Nintendo studio head Shigeru Miyamoto was taken with the similarity between Sabre and Fox McCloud from the Star Fox series. He requested that the game's development be moved to the GameCube and be adapted to include Star Fox characters. The game was eventually released in 2002 as Star Fox Adventures.

Jungle Emperor Leo was a 1997 movie based on the 1950s manga by Osamu Tezuka, Kimba the White Lion (incidentally, the inspiration for Disney's The Lion King). Nintendo secured the rights to develop a game based on the movie which was announced for the 64DD.

The game appears to have been an action-adventure title starring characters from the movie and manga, but very little footage of the game was shown, so details are scarce.

Shigeru Miyamoto reportedly requested that Makoto Tezuka, son of the original author, led the team developing the game. He didn't join the team due to being busy with other projects and unfamiliar with videogame development.

In development by Bits Studios, RiQa was shown at E3 1999 and appeared to be heavily inspired by PlayStation title, Tomb Raider. It was a third-person perspective action and exploration game starring a female protagonist.

The game was only shown once, and then was delayed several times before being dropped, with very few details provided. However, it is believed that Bits Studios later used elements from RiQa in its multiformat 2003 title Rogue Ops.

Reportedly, when Nintendo saw Silicon Knights' survival horror title at a trade show, they quickly set the wheels in motion to bring the company in as a second party. Development of Eternal Darkness continued on the Nintendo 64 for a short time before being ported to the GameCube as Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem.

The Nintendo 64 version seemed to contain at least one playable character who only appeared as a bit-part in the final game: a knight named DeMolay. There appear to have been many other chapters cut from the final game as well, suggesting that Silicon Knights intended the game to have further sequels. Unfortunately, these also failed to appear.

Developed by Looking Glass Studios, Mini Racers was first announced in 1998, but not shown until Nintendo Spaceworld 2000.

Mini Racers was a racing game featuring small, remote controlled cars as they raced around on miniature racecourses.

The game was planned to have a track editor and a strong focus on multiplayer, but the game was dropped shortly after it was shown, likely due to the announcement of the GameCube.

Developed by an unknown team under Marigul Management, a video of a game called CatRoots was displayed at E3 2000, but no details were made available.

The video shows a red, cartoon cat running from a homicidal mouse attacking it with weapons, including a hammer, ninja stars and a flamethrower. At the end of the video, the cat is pinned and defeated by the mouse's pointed tail, and a Game Over sign is shown, suggesting you played as the cat.

The game was never shown or mentioned again.

Developed by Saru Brunei under Marigul Management, Animal Leader was a survival action game where you played a small, cuboid animal that had to eat its way up the food chain.

The game was retooled and released on the GameCube as Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest.

Revealed at Nintendo Spaceworld 2000, Echo Delta was developed by Clever Trick under Marigul Management. The game was a real-time strategy title where you controlled a submarine recovering parts of a sunken ship. You also had to mine energy from the ocean floor and deliver it to the "core" to upgrade your submarine. You would have to defend the core, and yourself, from enemy boats.

After Spaceworld, the game was quietly cancelled.