12 Video Games Created By Accident

8. Banjo-Kazooie

bioshock game
Microsoft

Banjo-Kazooie is a 3D platformer where the titular bear and bird must defeat an evil witch and rescue Banjo's sister.

When you hear that premise, you would NEVER believe it started off as a SNES title called Dream: Land of the Giants, centred around a boy, a dog, and a parrot battling pirates.

Not only was the stories chalk and cheese, the style and genre were completely different as well. Rather than being a platformer, Dream was envisioned as an isometric RPG. By using ACM technology, Dream would've had graphics akin to Donkey Kong Country, but to a higher degree.

When Rare got their first glimpse of Super Mario 64, they realised 3D platformers were the future of gaming, compelling them to turn Dream into a similarly-structured title for the N64. Believing a human character looked too generic in three dimensions, Rare changed Dream's protagonist into a rabbit.

After a few days, they reworked the lead character again into the backpack-wearing bear, Banjo. Although the developers wanted Banjo to be agile like Mario, they thought an acrobatic grizzly would look weird. After some brainstorming, Rare decided to give Banjo a partner, a bird called Kazooie, who would pull off the more nimbler techniques.

When you look back, the only thing Dream and Banjo-Kazooie had in common was... they were both games.

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James Egan has been with Whatculture for five years and prominently works on Horror, Film, and Video Games. He's written over 80 books including 1000 Facts about Horror Movies Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about The Greatest Films Ever Made Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about Video Games Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts About James Bond 1000 Facts About TV Shows