Unreleased Rare Game Dinosaur Planet Appears Online

Dinosaur Planet, a game from Rare Entertainment that never came out because it was turned into Star Fox Adventures, has been leaked. Dinosaur Planet was in development for the Nintendo 64 and development was in an advanced state, making the game playable.

The build of the game comes from a collector from Sweden. who had according to the Nintendo historians at Forest of Illusion another disc with the development build on it. This build is dated December 2000; Star Fox Adventures came out in September of 2002 for the GameCube. Although this build is almost two years younger, it is still playable. Apparently a lot of work has gone into changing the characters and story in the meantime, but the gameplay systems were already in good shape. Fox itself is already in it, though.

In an interview with Nintendo Life in 2012, the game’s lead software engineer, Phil Tossell, stated that he didn’t remember where the idea of ​​turning the game into a Star Fox game came from, but that he had heard that Nintendo chief executive Shigeru Miyamoto suggested it. This is partly because of the similarities with the characters in Star Fox games.

The game, like Star Fox Adventures, is a 3d adventure game. Forest of Illusion reports that there will be technical problems when playing the game on an emulator, but via a flashcart in a modded Nintendo 64 the game should just run. Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry went that route and recorded gameplay footage.

Dinosaur Planet isn’t the only Rare game leaked recently. Earlier this month, a build of the GoldenEye 007 remaster for Xbox 360 hit the web. It is also playable.