EarthBound 64
Mother 3 for Nintendo 64
Nintendo's first 3D Mother game crossed three hardware formats before its creators cancelled the production and rebuilt the story years later.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Never Born
- Peak stage
- public demo or preview
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
The Nintendo 64 and 64DD version of Mother 3, planned as a sequel to EarthBound.
The project attempted a large 3D role-playing story with many characters, unusual rhythm-based ideas and an ambitious chapter structure.
Existence timeline
Early work begins before moving to new hardware.
The sequel becomes a major 3D project.
Visitors see a substantial public demonstration.
Nintendo and Itoi stop the Nintendo 64 version.
A separate Game Boy Advance production carries much of the narrative to release.
Why it ended
Technical difficulty, schedule pressure and the declining Nintendo 64 lifecycle led Shigesato Itoi and Nintendo to cancel it in 2000.
Last confirmed trace
Trade-show footage, screenshots, interviews and design material preserve the 3D version; no public build is known.
What it left behind
The narrative and characters were rebuilt for the 2006 Game Boy Advance Mother 3, but the original 3D experience remains distinct.
How we classified it
The proposed archive unit never reached ordinary public access in the form being documented.
The strongest verified milestone maps to public_demo_or_preview under Arrival Score V1.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.