Jim Wornell, a former Nintendo of America staff member, has told popular YouTube channel, Did You Know Gaming?that the Kyoto-based company was working on an F-Zero spin-off for the ill-fated, Virtual Boy. The spin-off was set to be titled Zero Racers and it was near complete and ready to release on the platform but because the Virtual Boy turned out to be a commercial failure, the game was never released. Some of you may have seen the screenshots for the spin-off game as it was showcased in both the July and August 1996 issues of Nintendo Power magazine. Zero Racers would have featured characters like Jody Summer and James McCloud, but because the game was ultimately canned they made their debuts in F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64 console instead.
“As an associate producer […] I wrote screen text, manual and package text, took screenshots, oversaw the debug and approval process, liaised with NCL, worked with marketing and advertising, etc,” Wornell said.
“Anything that had to do with the North American launch of a game was my responsibility. ‘G-Zero’, later known as ‘Zero Racers’, was on my list of projects.
“Zero Racers was done. We had a complete manual, package, and label done for the game, it went through lot check, it had an ESRB rating. It was complete.”
