Body Harvest survives Nintendo development hell, and its engine becomes GTA
Years of contradictory demands from two Nintendos end with a different publisher, while the 3D technology built along the way quietly becomes Grand Theft Auto
Quick facts
- Developer
- DMA Design
- Project
- DMA's game for Nintendo's Dream Team (N64)
- Protagonist
- Adam Drake, fighting alien invasions across time zones
- What went wrong
- Contradictory demands from Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan
- Final publishers
- Gremlin Interactive; Midway in North America
- Released
- Late 1998, Nintendo 64
- Proto-GTA trait
- More than 60 drivable vehicles
- Lasting legacy
- Its graphics engine became the basis of Grand Theft Auto
What happened
Body Harvest was DMA's big swing for the Dream Team: an ambitious 3D game starring Adam Drake, fighting off alien invasions across different locations and time zones, with more than sixty drivable vehicles scattered through its world. Development turned into an ordeal. Nintendo's American and Japanese branches pulled the design in opposite directions by fax, with Nintendo of America asking for more detail and complexity while Nintendo of Japan wanted it simplified, then reimagined Drake as a secret agent, complete with a note asking whether he could wear a dinner jacket. A first-hand account from inside DMA describes a partner that often didn't know what it wanted but definitely knew when it wasn't getting it. In the end Nintendo decided not to publish the game at all. It finally shipped on the Nintendo 64 in late 1998, published by Gremlin Interactive, with Midway picking up the North American rights. The most important thing to come out of the project was not the game: during its development Mike Dailly built the graphics engine that would go on to form Grand Theft Auto.
Why it matters
This troubled Nintendo project is the hinge between DMA and Rockstar. The 3D engine that would power Grand Theft Auto was born inside it, so the technology jumped straight from a struggling Nintendo project to the studio's defining work. The ordeal also hardened DMA's conviction that it needed the freedom to make its own games its own way, and that conviction pointed straight at Grand Theft Auto.
How we know
The development ordeal comes from a making-of feature built on a first-hand DMA developer account, including the fax exchanges with both Nintendo branches, the Adam Drake redesigns, and the statement that the graphics engine "which would form Grand Theft Auto" was created during this project. IGN's contemporary review from October 1998 confirms the game began as a Nintendo project before Midway picked up the rights, and noted even then that Nintendo's reasons were unknown. The often-repeated claim that Nintendo dropped it specifically over violence is not confirmed by either account, so we leave it out.
Sources
- Time Extension. The Making Of: Body Harvest, The N64 Cult Classic That Went Through Development Hell (Time Extension) (2015) · Reputable sourcetimeextension.com · The domain "timeextension.com" is on our Reputable source registry.
- Peer Schneider. Body Harvest Review (IGN, contemporary, October 1998) (1998) · Reputable sourceign.com · The domain "ign.com" is on our Reputable source registry.
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