Project Origins
June 4, 2008Fun Facts! Just for giggles, here are some 100% name changes that games have gone through before they were released.
- Destroy All Humans was originally called Grand Theft Human. One can assume it was changed both for legal reasons and the fact that GTH isn’t a very good name.
- Red Steel began its life as Katana. It was later changed to Katana and the 9mm, then changed again right before it was unveiled to the public.
- Kane and Lynch almost came to market under the hilariously terrible name Bad Bad Men.
- Sea Dogs 2 was famously reworked into the first Pirates of the Carribean game. Not surprisingly, it captured very little of the feel of the first movie.
- Sega tested several different names for Condemned: Criminal Origins (which I unfortunately can’t remember). Both Sega and developer Monolith wanted to call it simply Condemned, but there was a problem with the copyright for that name in Europe. The subhead was added to circumvent that issue.
- As most gamers know, the Wii was originally codenamed the Revolution. What they may not know is that a big reason why the console didn’t stick with that name was that Japanese consumers would have trouble pronouncing “Revolution.” Seriously.
DAH was never ever called “Grand Theft Human”. The code name at the start of development was “UFO”, but very quickly became “Destroy All Humans!” after lead designer (and now internet dancing sensation) Matt Harding and project lead Andy Payne came up with it after work one night. You can see this too in the “History of” movie, included with the disc.
I think the only reference to “Grand Theft Human” was a comparison made by GameInformer, which also explains why GameInformer have never titled or released a moderately successful and partially flawed game about aliens recently.
Very interesting about the UFO name, Spraynwipe. I know for a fact that THQ considered the title “Grand Theft Human.” It’s possible that the developer wasn’t even aware of that though. Publishers and developers don’t always share every idea they have, especially ones that go nowhere as the GTH name did.