The Project Dream SNES prototype, the proof-of-concept alpha that eventually evolved into Banjo-Kazooie, has been released publicly for the first time, surfacing on the Internet Archive after three decades in private hands. A user going by FvckAsha&Phil uploaded the file and has asked journalists to explain the reasoning behind making it available now.
What Project Dream Actually Was
Before Banjo and Kazooie existed as a bear-and-bird double act, Rare was building something quite different on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. According to the Banjo-Kazooie Wiki, production on Project Dream began around the end of 1995, with the team spending around 16 months developing it before the project was eventually redeveloped into what became Banjo-Kazooie. The playable character in that original SNES build was not a bear or a bird at all: it was a sword-wielding boy named Edson, assisted by his pet dog Dinger.
That context makes the leaked build all the more interesting to poke around in. The version now available on Internet Archive contains four levels, which you can cycle through by pressing the Tab key on a keyboard. It functions as something close to a showreel: a series of environments demonstrating what the SNES engine could do, rather than a fully playable game in any conventional sense. Visually it carries the hallmarks of the Rare house style of that period, and the first impression is of a platformer in the Donkey Kong Country mould.
As Video Games Chronicle reports, the prototype has leaked after 30 years, making this one of the longer-dormant pieces of gaming history to finally reach the public. The gap between what Rare was building in 1995 and what eventually shipped as Banjo-Kazooie on the Nintendo 64 is considerable, and this build is a rare window into how much a game can transform during development.
The Project Dream SNES Prototype and the Preservation Argument
FvckAsha&Phil has included a text file alongside the release, and a message on the Internet Archive page, setting out plainly why they chose to share it now. They had held onto the file for years, aware that it was known to only a small circle of people. The file passed from person to person over time, the kind of chain that runs through retro gaming preservation history: someone had it from a friend, who had it from a friend, and so on.
The stated reason for releasing it now is Microsoft’s treatment of Rare. FvckAsha&Phil wants the ROM preserved and documented as part of retro gaming’s history, and is openly hoping that others who may hold Rare prototypes will follow suit. The message frames this as a matter of keeping the company’s legacy visible to future generations of gamers, rather than letting it remain locked on a handful of private hard drives indefinitely.
There is something fitting about the Project Dream SNES prototype turning up this way. Rare’s Nintendo-era output sits at the heart of a generation’s gaming memory, and the gap between what might have been and what actually shipped is exactly the kind of history that preservation efforts exist to document. An Edson and Dinger platformer on the SNES is a very different proposition from a bear with a bird in his backpack on the N64, and now anyone curious about that gap can load up the build themselves and see where Rare’s thinking started.
The file is available to download from Internet Archive and can be played on a standard SNES emulator.
