Trivia / Body Harvest

• Dummied Out: The game changed genre quite a lot during development: It was first going to be a RPG, then a pure shooter before ending up in its current form. The completely different gameplay between the indoor and outdoor sections and the strange mapping of the landscape are relics of the different concepts. This image gallery uploaded by a former DMA employee show there was going to be levels set in Hawaii, Japan and Antarctica.
• Troubled Development: After developing a positive relationship in the wake of the SNES racing title Uniracers, DMA Design was made part of Nintendo's "Dream Team" of Western developers for the Nintendo 64. Body Harvest was one of two games that Nintendo would publish for the developer, and initially envisioned as a homage to 1950s horror B-Movies like Them!. After two years of development and missing the launch window of the N64, Nintendo was displeased with the progress being made on the game and started to become more hands-on with the production. However, this led to greater delays and frustration as the gameplay and tone started to be under contention: not only did Nintendo request that it become an Eastern RPG, but both the American and Japanese branches of the company couldn't agree on DMA Design's shifting of the tone and plot to that of a more serious sci-fi adventure. Eventually, Nintendo had some of the core dev team spend a few weeks in Japan to get an understanding of the Nintendo EAD design process, but when they returned to Scotland, they learned that the team had been awkwardly expanded due to the other Nintendo project being cancelled. In order to reinvigorate the team, they decided to return to the original open-world design against Nintendo's wishes, and while this successfully improved morale, the move infuriated Nintendo and they cancelled their publishing contract.
• What Could Have Been: The game was originally planned to be published by Nintendo, but various development issues and disagreements led to the Japanese company dropping the project, necessitating DMA Design to find a new publisher.

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