Rare's Project Dream — the SNES prototype that became Banjo-Kazooie — has leaked after 30 years
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A playable ROM of Project Dream, Rare's mid-90s SNES prototype that was eventually reworked into Banjo-Kazooie, has surfaced online after more than three decades. The upload was made anonymously to the Internet Archive by someone calling themselves "FvckAsha&Phil" — a reference to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and her predecessor Phil Spencer — citing Microsoft's "heartless gutting and mismanagement of Rare and other companies it controls" as the motivation.
The details:
Project Dream was a fantasy RPG starring a boy named Edson in a conflict with pirates, built in an isometric style with pre-rendered sprites similar to Donkey Kong Country. The leaked SNES build is an early test prototype — playable but sparse, with little to do beyond moving through screens and attacking enemies with a sword. A second controller can be used to control the enemies.
The game was later transitioned to the Nintendo 64, where it expanded into a larger action RPG before being scaled back into a 3D platformer. Edson was eventually replaced by Banjo, and the project was retitled Banjo-Kazooie, releasing in 1998. Project Dream had been one of gaming's most sought-after pieces of lost media.
Rare composer Grant Kirkhope, who worked at the studio during the game's development, said the leak "looks real to me." Fellow former Rare composer David Wise independently agreed: "It looks real to me." Neither Microsoft nor Rare have commented.
