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A mysterious piece of gaming history has resurfaced!

An alleged prototype of a canceled SNES RPG that ultimately evolved into what would become *Banjo-Kazooie* has reportedly leaked online. In this video, we take a look at the leaked footage/build, the history behind the project, and how this forgotten SNES game connects to one of Rare's most beloved franchises.

How much of the original RPG survived? What does it reveal about the development of *Banjo-Kazooie*? And what can this unexpected leak tell us about Rare's early ideas?

If you enjoy the video, be sure to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and ring the notification bell so you don't miss the next video!

🎮 Game On!

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#BanjoKazooie #SNES #Nintendo #Rare #GamingHistory #RetroGaming #LostGames #GameLeaks
Transcript
00:00Imagine discovering a piece of gaming history that could help fill in one of the biggest missing chapters in Rare's
00:05history.
00:06Before Banjo-Kazooie became one of the Nintendo 64's most beloved platformers, the project that would eventually become that game
00:13was something very different.
00:15It was planned as a fantasy RPG for the Super Nintendo, and now, decades later, an alleged playable prototype of
00:22that original SAES project has suddenly surfaced online.
00:27The game is known as Project Dreams, and for Rare fans, this is potentially an incredible discovery because we've known
00:33about this mysterious game for years.
00:35We've seen pieces of its history, we've seen footage from different stages of development, and we've known that its ideas
00:41eventually helped give birth to Banjo-Kazooie.
00:44But actually getting our hands on an alleged playable SAES proof of concept is something else entirely.
00:50So today we're going to take a look at what has surfaced, who claims to have released it, why they
00:54say they did it, and how this strange SAES RPG eventually transformed into one of the Nintendo 64's most recognizable
01:02games.
01:04And before we get into it, if you enjoy the video, make sure to give it a thumbs up, subscribe
01:09to the channel, and ring the notification bell so you don't miss my future gaming videos.
01:13And if you'd like to support the channel even further, check out my Patreon. The link will be in the
01:18description.
01:19Even becoming a $1 a month supporter helps me continue making videos like this.
01:24Now let's go back to the beginning.
01:27Project Dream is one of those fascinating pieces of gaming history that became more interesting precisely because the original game
01:33was never released.
01:34Development on the project began around 1995 at Rare, during a period when the company was producing some of the
01:41most recognizable games on the Super Nintendo.
01:44At this point, Rare was already an extremely important developer for Nintendo.
01:48The company had demonstrated what it could do with the Super Nintendo hardware particularly with games like Donkey Kong Country.
01:54But Project Dream was intended to be something considerably different.
01:58Rather than another platformer, the project was envisioned as a much more ambitious fantasy RPG.
02:04And this is where the newly surfaced material becomes especially fascinating.
02:09According to the person who uploaded the alleged build, what we're looking at is a SAES Proof of Concept Alpha
02:15of Project Dream, Land of Giants.
02:17That means we shouldn't necessarily expect anything resembling a finished game.
02:21This was an early development build.
02:23There could be unfinished mechanics, placeholder assets, incomplete areas, technical problems, or ideas that never made it anywhere near the
02:31final version of Project Dream.
02:32But that's also exactly what makes prototype footage so fascinating.
02:37You're not simply looking at an unreleased game.
02:40You're looking at a snapshot of what developers were experimenting with before the project evolved into something completely different.
02:47And that's important because Project Dream didn't simply get cancelled and disappear.
02:52Its development continued to evolve, and eventually the project would move away from the Super Nintendo altogether.
02:57As development continued, Project Dream became increasingly ambitious.
03:02Eventually, the team reached the point where the Super Nintendo hardware simply wasn't enough for what they wanted to accomplish.
03:09So Project Dream moved to the Nintendo 64.
03:13And this is where history of Project Dream starts becoming much more recognizable to Banjo-Kazooie fans.
03:19The concept evolved, the game became more focused on pirates, and perhaps most importantly, its protagonist changed.
03:26The original Project Dream featured a young human protagonist, but as development progressed, Banjo became increasingly important to the project.
03:34Interestingly enough, Banjo wasn't originally intended to be the star of the game.
03:38He was initially a side character, but eventually he replaced the game's original human protagonist.
03:45And that decision would ultimately help create one of Rare's most famous characters.
03:50Of course, simply replacing the protagonist wasn't the only major change.
03:54Project Dream itself continued changing dramatically.
03:57The RPG elements were eventually abandoned, the project became more of a pirate-themed adventure, and then another Rare project
04:05would have an enormous impact on its future.
04:07During the development of Project Dream, Rare was also working on what would eventually become Conker's Bad Fur Day.
04:14And according to the history of the project, the team behind Project Dream saw what was being done with Conker
04:20and began reconsidering their own game.
04:23Project Dream had become an extremely ambitious project, but the team was more comfortable working within the platformer genre.
04:30So rather than continuing to develop Project Dream as the large RPG it had originally been envisioned as, the project
04:36transformed yet again.
04:38Eventually what remained of Project Dream became the foundation for Banjo-Kazooie.
04:42And that means when you play Banjo-Kazooie today, you're essentially looking at the final form of a project that
04:48went through several completely different identities.
04:51A Super Nintendo Fantasy RPG, then an increasingly ambitious Nintendo 64 adventure, then a pirate-themed project, then a game
05:00centered around a bear who had originally been a side character, and finally a 3D platformer.
05:06That's quite an evolution.
05:08One of the coolest remnants of Project Dream can actually be found inside Banjo-Kazooie itself, Captain Black Eye.
05:14The character was originally intended to be the main villain of Project Dream, and even though Project Dream never became
05:21the game it was originally supposed to be, Captain Black Eye survived in a much smaller role.
05:26In Banjo-Kazooie, Black Eye appears as a cameo, and complains about a bear stealing his glory.
05:31It's a pretty funny moment on its own, but knowing the history behind it makes the scene much more interesting,
05:37because Captain Black Eye wasn't simply some random pirate rare created for Banjo-Kazooie.
05:42He was a remnant of an earlier version of the game.
05:46A little piece of Project Dream that survives the project's transformation.
05:50And that's one reason discoveries involving Project Dream are so fascinating.
05:54They give us a better idea what could have been.
05:56Now we get to the big story.
05:59On September 9th, an Internet Archive user going by the name FVCK Asha and Phil uploaded what they claim is
06:06a playable SAS proof-of-concept Alpha or Project Dream Land of Giants.
06:11The username itself appears to be a reference to current Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and former Xbox boss Phil Spencer.
06:19And the person behind the upload isn't exactly hiding the fact this was released as a statement about the modern
06:24game industry.
06:25The uploader says they aren't going to reveal exactly how they obtained the build because they don't want to get
06:31anyone in trouble.
06:32Instead, they describe the chain of custody in extremely vague terms, essentially saying they got it from someone who got
06:38it from someone else.
06:39So there's no publicly disclosed source that allows us to independently verify where this particular build originated.
06:47And that's something worth keeping in mind.
06:49At least based on the information available in the article we're discussing, this should be treated as an alleged Project
06:55Dream prototype rather than definitive proof that every part of the build's history is known.
07:00But assuming the build is genuine, we're potentially looking at an incredibly interesting piece of rare history.
07:06The person responsible for the upload says their motivation isn't simply to show off a rare piece of software.
07:13They say they're frustrated with the current state of the video game industry.
07:17Specifically, they point toward what they describe as Microsoft's treatment and management of rare,
07:22along with broader concerns about layoffs, artificial intelligence, game preservation, ownership, and the direction of the industry.
07:29They also make political statements in the description of the upload.
07:33I'm not going to turn this video into a discussion about those political claims,
07:36because the more interesting gaming story here is what the leak potentially means for preservation and our understanding of rare's
07:43history.
07:44But the motivation behind the release is important because the uploader explicitly frames the prototype as something that should be
07:50preserved and examined.
07:52They also express hope that releasing this build might encourage other people who possess unreleased prototypes to preserve and share
07:59them as well.
08:01And that's where this story becomes bigger than Project Dream.
08:04Video game history has a preservation problem.
08:06Games don't exist forever simply because they were once commercially released.
08:11Development builds can disappear.
08:13Hard drives fail.
08:14Companies close.
08:15Developers retire.
08:17Physical media deteriorates.
08:18And sometimes the only surviving evidence of a game is a few screenshots, a magazine article, a video clip, or
08:25a developer interview.
08:26Prototype discoveries can therefore be incredibly valuable to historians and researchers.
08:31They allow us to see how games actually developed rather than relying exclusively on the final product.
08:37And Project Dream is an especially good example.
08:40If all we had was Banjo-Kazooie, we could look at that game and understand what Rare eventually created.
08:46But Project Dream gave us a window into the road that led there.
08:50And now this alleged SAES build could potentially show us an even earlier stage of that journey.
08:56Think about just how different the starting point was.
08:58Project Dream began life as a fantasy RPG on the Super Nintendo.
09:03Then it grew beyond what the SAES could comfortably handle.
09:06It moved to the Nintendo 64.
09:08The concept changed.
09:10The pirate elements became more prominent.
09:13The young human protagonist was replaced by Banjo.
09:16And eventually the RPG became a platformer.
09:19And somehow, all of those changes eventually led to one of the defining 3D platformers of the Nintendo 64 era.
09:25That's what makes the history of Project Dream so fascinating.
09:28It isn't simply the story of a cancelled game.
09:31It's the story of how one game can evolve so drastically that the original project essentially disappears beneath the game
09:38that eventually replaces it.
09:40For Banjo-Kazooie fans, this alleged prototype could provide another piece of that puzzle.
09:45For Rare fans, it potentially gives us another look at the company's creative process during one of the most important
09:52periods in its history.
09:53And for video game preservation enthusiasts, it's another reminder that there are still pieces of gaming history sitting somewhere that
10:00the public has never seen.
10:01That's probably the biggest takeaway I have from this story.
10:05We often think of video game history as something that's already documented.
10:09We have the games, magazines, interviews, documentaries, but there are still enormous gaps.
10:15There are games that were cancelled.
10:17There are prototypes that never left development studios.
10:20There are builds sitting on old development hardware.
10:23And every once in a while, something that has been missing for decades suddenly appears.
10:28Project Dream is one of those stories.
10:30We don't know everything about this newly surfaced build.
10:33We don't know publicly where it originally came from.
10:36And the authenticity and providence of the alleged prototype should be approached carefully until more evidence becomes available.
10:43But if this really is what it claims to be, we're looking at a fascinating piece of Rare history.
10:48A piece of history that shows us what Banjo-Kazooie might have looked like before it became Banjo-Kazooie.
10:54And that's what makes this story so incredible.
10:56A cancelled SAES RPG that grew too ambitious for its original hardware.
11:01A project that moved to the Nintendo 64.
11:04A protagonist who was replaced.
11:06A villain who survived as a cameo.
11:08A game that transformed from an RPG into a platformer.
11:12And eventually won Rare's most beloved franchises.
11:16Now decades later, we're potentially getting another glimpse at where that journey began.
11:21Whether you're a long time Rare fan.
11:23A Banjo-Kazooie fan.
11:25Or simply someone fascinated by unreleased games and video game preservation.
11:29Project Dream is a perfect example of why these forgotten pieces of gaming history are worth paying attention to.
11:36If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up.
11:40Subscribe to the channel.
11:41And ring the notification bell so you don't miss out on future gaming videos.
11:45And don't forget to check out my Patreon.
11:47The link is in the description and even a $1 a month pledge can help support the channel and the
11:53work that goes into making these videos.
11:55Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time.
11:59Game on!

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