Scott Pilgrim Vs the World: The Game has been gone for seven years now. It released digitally on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2010 and was delisted in 2014. It had a better run compared to some other licensed based digital releases like The Simpsons arcade game.
The point is it is a miracle it is back. It’s actually a miracle it even shipped in the first place. It was riddled with disasters from the game being canceled after five months to moving onto a new studio and being rushed through after that. There were a lot of cuts in other words and these are some of the best-known exclusions.
10 The Pitch Video
The original pitch video for Ubisoft at the time was much different compared to the final release. It had a more NES, 8-bit influence to it. For example, the opening and Boss menu were both straight out of Mega Man. The gameplay looked rough although it was more of an animation than a real game at this point. It’s also interesting to note that before they hired Anamanaguchi to create the soundtrack, the plan was to incorporate chiptune versions of famous songs like “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones, “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes, and “Scott Pilgrim” by Plumtree which can all be heard in the video.
9 Scrapped Art
Stéphane Boutin was one of the artists that worked on the game. Last September he uploaded all of his scrapped art onto his Behance blog. Some of the more notable cuts include two hipster enemies that didn’t make it in, the map layout was also different and the beginning of level one would have started in a school. Part of that last idea was reused in a Subspace area.
8 Crash And The Boys Mini Boss
“Early on we wanted to have every character from the books as bosses, enemies, NPC, or straight-up playable characters.” That’s a quote from Boutin in this blog, which will surface many times throughout this article.
Anyway, he also went on to discuss the idea that many characters could have made it in as mini-bosses. For example, Crash and the Boys would have been a mini-boss for level one. There is no art to show for this though.
7 Skateboard Chase
Besides mini-boss exclusions, some main boss battles against the Seven Evil Exes would have also played out differently. In the level two fight against Lucas, there were plans for a skateboard chase on the grind rails. The only evidence left of this idea can be seen in Boutin’s sketches which show designs for a longer staircase rail that looks more like the books and film versions. This is the story for most of these ideas: not enough time.
6 Todd Ingram Shoots Up
The idea for level 3’s final boss against Todd was also different. In this case, though, there is an actual screenshot, as seen above, showcasing how this would have looked. It would have played out like a horizontal space shooter akin to something like R-Type, or Gradius. Boutin said that besides this, most of the ideas for this third level were kept intact because it was the first one the team mostly finished before moving studios.
5 Level 4’s Cuts
Level four had a lot of areas that were originally longer but were eventually cut. It would have started on a beach with a big homage mini-boss to the NES game Super Spike V Ball. This beach would later go into the Dodgeball mini-game albeit in a shorter form. There was also going to be a longer portion of China Town and players could have gone into Ramona’s house before fighting at the end with Roxy. The art above still shows some of these cut scene ideas.
4 Level 5’s Cuts
Level 5 had a Halloween street party section before players would move into the house for the bigger party. The Twins’ hideout was also bigger, with three floors instead of one. Each floor would have had one of their dragons be a mini-boss like how they looked in the film. Not a lot of these boss ideas were drawn out but there is some inclination of these bigger areas at least in the above sketches.
3 Level 6’s Cuts
Level 6 would have also strived to be longer. It goes through various changes in the weather already but it would have been filled even more with seasonal twists. There was also an idea floating around to give every character a Nega version instead of it always being Scott’s. The above sketches show some changes to how the levels would have looked but there is not much to go on overall.
2 More Subspace
The team wanted to not only include more Subspace and secret areas, but they wanted them to be filled with references to other games as well. They also thought it would have been better if these were not run based, but fly based levels.
Remnants of that probably can be seen via that proposed idea for Todd’s boss battle. After all, if they were going to program that in then it should have been easy and or beneficial to fit these mechanics in more.
1 Cut DLC
Twitter user, @XandriteDraws, asked the creator of the Scott Pilgrim comics, Bryan Lee O'Malley, if there would be any new content in this re-release. O’Malley said no but mentioned that there were originally plans for DLC set around Montreal. In it, players could have been Envy, Lynette, or Todd, aka The Clash at Demonhead. Maybe if this re-release sells well, this, and all other ideas, can be used for a sequel and or more DLC.