After 25 years, an unreleased Star Fox-style N64 shooter has been saved from the fires of lost media hell

Here we are, deep into 2025, and a brand-new Nintendo 64 game has just been released – albeit unofficially. Sammy Corporation's Star Fox-style shooter, Viewpoint 2064, was mysteriously canceled after appearing at industry events around the turn of the century, but an apparently final build has now been preserved and published online for all to see.

YouTube channel Hard4Games, which specializes in preservation content, previously showcased a beta version of Viewpoint 2064 way back in 2020. Now, five years later, an anonymous individual has provided the channel with what's labeled as a "master" cart for Viewpoint 2064. This version appears to be ready to be manufactured and shipped to retail – in essence, it's a brand-new Nintendo 64 game being released for the first time on the Internet Archive.

The game is a sequel to the Neo Geo space shooter Viewpoint, trading the original's isometric viewpoint for a behind-the-back perspective that looks a whole lot like Star Fox. In fact, the game looks like something of a hybrid between an old-school scrolling shoot–'em-up and a third-person rail shooter in the vein of Nintendo's classic.

FOUND! Viewpoint 2064 - FINAL VERSION preserved (N64) - YouTube

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Viewpoint was published by Sammy – now a subsidiary of Sega – and the publisher showcased 2064 at Nintendo's Space World event in 1999. It was never officially canceled, but promotional materials for the game dried up some time in 2000. The preservation community's best guess as to the reason why is that the market for N64 games had simply dried up to the point where it wouldn't have even been worth manufacturing the carts for Viewpoint 2064.

Things seem to have worked out for developer Racdym, however. Now known as Racjin, the company does support work on notable titles including the likes of excellent cozy RPG Fantasy Life i and Nintendo's own Mario & Luigi: Brothership. Now, it seems, a little extra part of the studio's legacy gets to live on too.

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