In many ways, there have been two games titled Republic: The Revolution: one that was released in 2003 and almost immediately forgotten by everyone, and one that had only existed between 1999 and 2003 in the imaginations of its developers and fans, the latter of whom still like to reminisce about What Could Have Been two decades later.
- The devs had initially (ca. late 1999) planned to let players import pictures of their own faces into the game to feature on propaganda posters across town, as well as on their 3D avatar's head. This was later (by mid-2002) scrapped in favor of Character Customization of the avatar's face, which was eventually scrapped, too, in favor of a unchangeable default appearance in the final release.
- Likewise, the protagonist was originally supposed to have a regular profession, just like the NPCs he recruited, albeit chosen by players from a limited selection of Political, Business, Criminal, Religious, or Military. This was eventually scrapped for a unique "Faction Head" profession, which is still found in the game files as "Faction Head OLD" and is a mix of Force and Wealth-aligned actions (Influence is notably absent) that characterize the protagonist as The Don-slash-Corrupt Corporate Executive who either browbeats people into doing his bidding or buys their loyalties with cash. This was then split into the three ideology-aligned Faction Head professions found in the final game, with the PC's background reflected mainly by a Player Personality Quiz.
- Speaking of which, instead of three key ideologies/resources, the game was initially focused on the dichotomy of Democracy vs. Authoritarianism, and while becoming the president has always been the main objective, it was originally (again, late 1999) possible to just wait for the incumbent dictator to die of old age and then to legitimately win the subsequent election (with the authoritarian alternative being a Military Coup). It was even to be possible (if impractical) to completely avert being a Corrupt Politician as a Challenge Run. The elections have been completely scrapped by 2002, however, and replaced with the Velvet Revolution (Influence) and the Forced Resignation (Wealth) endings instead — which (alongside coup/Force) became the ideological trifecta that came to dominate the rest of the gameplay by the time of the release.
- The game was originally conceived as a full, unrestricted simulation of the entire Novistrana, with all actions rendered in real time by the Totality engine (the overbearing "Risk"-Style Map overlay only came into being in the final year of development). Eventually, the devs realized that throwing players into this simulation with no structure would induce an information overload and Paralysis by Analysis, so they made the game more and more linear over the years — most prominently, by splitting it into three acts/cities and introducing new actions with each new area. Each city originally had up to 20 missions, with 5 objectives each and the player only needing to achieve any 3 of them to complete the mission. This, too, was further simplified into the Branch-and-Bottleneck Plot Structure with three ideology-based branches in the final release.
- A number of actions showcased in promotional materials as late as Summer 2002 never made it into the final game, but can still be found by data-mining the files. One was Fight Clubbing, wherein the PC would organize a fight club to boost his functionaries' fitness and loyalty, with the option to make them fight to the death for maximum rewards (for the survivor). Another was a Tank Man
homage, where a faction member would put himself in the way of an advancing government tank and potentially get graphically crushed by it for maximum martyrdom points (i.e. Influence). - In 2002, you were supposed to start with 7 functionaries already on the party roster, but in the final release, you start the game with the PC by his lonesome and have to hire others first. The Arbitrary Headcount Limit was further reduced to just three other functionaries in Ekaterine, four in Pugachev, and five in Berezina.
