Titled ‘Dinosaur Planet’, the canceled title would eventually go on to become Star Fox Adventures in 2002, a launch title for Nintendo’s Gamecube. As already mentioned earlier (and as shown in the video above), the build is fully playable, although admittedly a bit buggy. The leak comes from Forest of Illusion, a group of gamers dedicated to preserving video games, in particular, Nintendo titles.
Link to the dump:https://t.co/gQGGcU4vJK pic.twitter.com/Orub7RU3fa — Forest of Illusion (@forestillusion) February 20, 2021 The group made the build available on archive.org for anyone interested in downloading and playing it.
From Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox
As Forest of Illusion explains, this was not just any early build. Instead, as they’ve discovered, the build was last updated on December 1, 2000, suggesting that this build was close to releasing, given the game was first announced in 1999. It is widely believed that Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto decided, mid-development, that the game would have made for the perfect Star Fox title on the Gamecube. Considering that ‘Dinosaur Planet’ includes Fox McCloud, the protagonist of the Star Fox franchise, it is possible that it might have been the final build before the game officially became a Star Fox title. It’s important to take note that, just because it’s a full game, doesn’t mean that you can finish. In a later tweet, the group explained that the game requires a bit of work for players to finish it through the end. However, this hasn’t stopped players from downloading the game and using emulators to play it at home.
