A few months ago, Argonaut Games announced a new remastered version of Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, one of the most beloved 3D platformers on the original PlayStation. Since then, the studio has been constantly posting updates on its official Twitter/X account.

But one of Argonaut Games' most recent posts revealed a fascinating new piece of information about the development process of Croc: Legend of the Gobbos: Croc was at one point going to be a dragon instead of a crocodile. But that's not the full st?ory.

Argonaut Games wil??l include an Encyclopedia (or "Crocipedia") in the new remaster, which will feature never-before-seen concept art that the studio discovered after its recent rebirth. It already revealed drawings and test animations of Croc as a small, anthropomorphized dragon with wings from December 1996.

Considering that the animations look almost completed and that Croc: Legend of the Gobbos came out less than a year later, it's most likely that this old version of the character got pretty far into development. Curiously enough, Spyro the Dragon, another classic PS1 platforming game starring a small dragon, came out in September 1998, which explains why Argonaut Games made a tongu?e-in-cheek reference to him in its original post.

And before that, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was going to be a Yoshi game

Remarkably, this wasn't even the first prototype version of Croc that the studio scrapped before the release of the game. Back in the early 90s, Argonaut Games had a close relationship with Nintendo after it helped develop the original Star Fox for the SNES. At one point, the studio created a concept for a brand-new 3D platformer starrin?g Yoshi and pitched it. As impressive as it was, Nintendo didn't want to let another company use its IP (not to mention that i??t was already working on Super Mario 64 at this point), so it rejected the concept, even though the pitch had apparently impressed Shigeru Miyamoto hi?mself.

This rejection and the cancellation of the almost completed Star Fox 2 marked the end of the partnership between Argonaut Games and Nintendo. Not wanting to let go of this brilliant concept, the studio repurposed its rejected Yoshi 3D platformer, transformed it into Croc: Legend of the Gobbos and released it on the PlayStation 1. So now we all know that Croc was originally going to be ??Yoshi, and ??he was later turned into a dragon before ending up as the adorable crocodile we all know and love.

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Argonaut Games has revealed that the studio has reformed, and is starting this new era by releasing a remaster of one of their beloved PS1/Saturn games, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. It’s coming to current consoles and PC.

Argonaut Games started off as a studio that developed games alongside cutting-edge hardware. They were responsible for the SNES FX chip that enabled 3D graphics on the console, as well as Star Fox and Stunt Racer FX, along with the lesser-known Vortex. Released in 1997, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was one of their better-received post-Nintendo titles. I personally like Buck Bumble better, but the last time I played it was, uh, 25 y??ears ago.

After a series of setbacks, the studio closed down. Their last game was Catwoman, an adaptation of the 2004 movie featuring Halle Berry. It was hilariously bad. I played through it, and, at times, I found it bordering on torturous. However, it did have some pretty great looking puddl?es for some reason.

For the rem?aster, it largely looks like everything was given the polishing brush. That is to say, it looks to be mostly the same, but all the polygonal edges have been sanded down. It’s kind of a weird effect. Everything is so smooth but still so basic. Some of the textures are a lot blurrier than others, which bothers me most of all, so I’m hoping we see a bit more consistency in the final release.

On top of that, there will be a “Crocipedia�that features “extensive and meticulously curated digital museum containing long-lost development assets such as game design documents, concept art, animation tests, team member interviews, and much more.�/p>

I own Croc: Legend of the Gobbos on PS1, and I can’t say I love it. I think it’s the simple environments that bring it down for m??e. I do have some fondness for Argonaut and their contributions, so I’d be down for giving it another try. However, I’m more interested in what comes next for the company.

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos is c??oming to â€?œcurrent consolesâ€?and PC later this year.

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