Unreleased SNES Rayman Game Re-Discovered In Playable Prototype

An unreleased Rayman game for the SNES, found after 24 years in 2016, has resurfaced with a playable demo.

Series creator Michel Ancel rediscovered the game last year, and now another game developer, Omar Cornut, has posted it to the web so anyone can play it. GameSpot has verified the build does run on PC, though do note you'll need an emulator to play the "very early dev build." Remember to be aware when using third-party software downloaded from the internet.

Cornut worked with Ancel on the latter's upcoming open-world survival game Wild. When Kotaku asked how he came into possession of the unreleased game, Cornut replied, "There's not a lot to it really; I borrowed the cartridge from Michel Ancel who kindly let me look at it and dump it."

In a tweet, Cornut wrote, "According to old screenshots and reports it _did_ grow to a more fully fledged game but a later version wasn't found yet."

Ancel originally posted about the prototype last year: "It's working! Four people in the world have seen this," he wrote. "We thought it was lost, but somewhere in the cold electronic circuit, something was still alive. And running at full 60 FPS!"

He'd previously said the game "was playable on the Super Nintendo console but was never finished."

Gallery

According to Unseen64, the game featured two-player co-op, though Cornut told Kotaku that this early build doesn't contain that feature. It seems Ubisoft shifted development of the project from SNES to support CD-based systems. It then came out in September 1995 for the original PlayStation and Atari Jaguar. The franchise has spawned numerous sequels, the latest in the core series being 2013's Rayman Legends.

Ancel is now working on Wild and Beyond Good & Evil 2, which was re-revealed at E3 2017.