Hey guys! I have gathered a list of popular games that went through interesting name changes during development. If anyone can think of anymore please leave a comment and maybe I’ll add it to the list or create a new post.
Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto is most likely the record holder for the game franchise with the most lawsuits against it! Interestingly what we now know as GTA was originally created as a fun racing and crashing game called Race’n’Chase. It began production in 1995 and it was projected to be released for MS-Dos, PlayStation, and the Nintendo 64 (We all know why that idea fell through). According to early documentation of Race’n’Chase players would only commit a few crimes during the game because they wanted more of a focus on the driving and racing. Later versions of the game focused more on crime and missions throughout the city and it was renamed to Grand Theft Auto because of your ability to steal other people’s cars.
Pac-Man
Originally was originally called Puck Man because its creator Toru Iwatani thought your character looked like a hockey puck. When Puck Man was being manufactured by Midway the game was changed to Pac-Man to prevent people from turning the “P” into and “F” to form F**ck Man. Classy.
Halo
Halo went through several names during development including: Monkey Nuts, Blam!, The Crystal, Star Maker and the most obscure of them being Solipsis. The game would have taken place on a planet called Solipsis but the planet eventually was scrapped for what is now known as the Halo. Solipsis seems to be a reference to solipsism which is the idea that “my mind is the only mind that exists” and that there is a collective body of consciousness in the universe. Or they just made it up cause it sounded cool.
Q*bert
Original names for Q*bert were mostly descriptions of the game such as Cubes (this could have been a fitting name). But some other original titles include: Snots, boogers and my favorite “@!#?@!”.
Doom
Lastly, we have DOOM one of the most prolific games of the first person shooter genre in the 1990’s. From the beginning the plot of the game was going to be an alien/zombie FPS. The game’s title in development was It’s Green and Pissed taking inspiration from monster movies of the 1950’s and 60’s. Later it was changed to DOOM because one of the creators liked a line from the movie The Color of Money, where a pool player walks up to Tom Cruise asking what he has in his billiards cue case. Cruise’s character slyly replies, “Doom”.
Thanks for reading! If you have an idea for a game to add to this list feel free to leave a comment.
You can read some of my older post:
- How to Start a Video Game Collection
- Man Keeps super Famicom Running for 20 years
- Lets Draw: Dig Dug
And you can follow me on Twitter and YouTube where I post geeky content that you will enjoy!