Some brand new videos of Farnation — an unreleased Dreamcast MMORPG from the early 2000s - have been posted on YouTube earlier today, giving us our first-ever look at the cancelled Sega project (h/t: Dreamcast Junkyard/Sega Dreamcast Info).
If you're the kind of person who clung to every Sega Dreamcast announcement back in the day or who typically spends their time trawling through lost media sites, you may have heard about Farnation before.
It was initially revealed by Gamespot back in August 2000 and was later previewed on the site, with the article's author suggesting at the time that it could become "one of the most visually impressive massively multiplayer online RPGs on the market". However, before it could ever get a retail release on the home console, Sega publicly announced it had switched platforms and then eventually cancelled it outright, leaving it to fade into obscurity for all except a few internet sleuths who have been trying to uncover more about this legendary lost game in the decades since.
About a year ago, a person under the username Ashtral shared under a Dreamcast subreddit post that they had a GD-R of the game as their family member used to work at Sega, and agreed to answer a couple of questions about it. Then, roughly four months ago, another user named "fuperslizzle" got people on the Dreamcast subreddit even more excited, after linking to an image of the game's title screen and going on to say "I'll be blowing your collective minds shortly with actual video". Now, it seems that they've come through with their promise, posting three videos on YouTube over the last couple of days under the channel name OG_JoeCain.
The first video that was posted shows a character standing stationary in a desert, with some placeholder text being present in the upper left corner alongside a health bar and a sword symbol. This was then followed by a second video shortly after, showcasing a texture viewer and other menu items, as well as a third video demonstrating a little bit of the exploration.
According to the Dreamcast researcher CombyLaurent, the version showcased in the video isn't the same GD-R that Ashtral posted about, but both discs are dated January 12th, 2001 and more than likely share the same contents.
If you want to learn more about these uploads and the demo, you can read some direct insights from fuperslizzle (real name Joe Cain) over on Sega Dreamcast Info, where Laurent was able to ask them some questions. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like this one will be made available publicly to play, but we're grateful to Cain for sharing what they can.