Long-lost Superman 64 for PlayStation resurfaces - and the backstory is wild

Superman 64 is undoubtedly one of the most infamous games in the history of gaming. Superman 64 is a historically bad game – one that all other bad games are compared to – and it almost existed on the original PlayStation instead of being an N64 exclusive. This PlayStation version of Superman 64 was ultimately cancelled because the license developer Titus had with Warner Bros expired, but all these years later, a prototype of the game has surfaced online.

This story is a strange one, as the game has resurfaced on DeviantArt. It's there that user DigitalExplorations has shared a link to an ISO download for the PlayStation version of Superman 64, which has apparently picked up the name Superman 2000 in the years since it was cancelled. The link is accompanied by a long post that explains, among other things, that DigitalExplorations originally came into possession of this game after winning an eBay auction for it back in 2013.

and the write-up on that post is full of weird scene drama involving deleting files because people were mean, and also something about publishing resident evil 1.5 fan fiction as a physical book? I understood about half of it, really nostalgic early 2000s emulator drama feelings.

— Frank Cifaldi (Sleepy).exe (@frankcifaldi) November 30, 2020

On Twitter, Frank Cifaldi, who is the founder and co-director of the Video Game History Foundation confirms that this indeed the first time he's seen a video game prototype drop on DeviantArt, which is likely a first for all of us as well.

Cifaldi also explains that while this isn't the first time we've seen gameplay from the canned PlayStation version of Superman 64, this prototype that was just released should be the most complete version of the game we've ever seen. While a demo has been floating around the internet for years, Cifaldi notes that this prototype is dated eight months after that demo, which means that the game we see here was much further along in development.

We're not sure why anyone would want to subject themselves to this prototype given just how holistically bad Superman 64 is, but from a game history preservation standpoint, the appearance of this prototype is nevertheless important. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can find it at the DeviantArt link above.