Lost, rare and forgotten pieces of the monkey's history.
The Ape Escape series has collected plenty of strange and obscure material over the years. Some of it was preserved, some disappeared from the internet, and some was only recently rediscovered. This little archive keeps track of some of the most interesting pieces of Ape Escape history, documenting canceled ports, unreleased prototypes, obscure Japanese promotional items, and historical artifacts from SCE Japan Studio's golden era.
A very early PlayStation build of Ape Escape, dated February 9, 1999. It contains unfinished layouts, debug features, test stages and other differences from the final game.
The prototype was publicly released in June 2026, turning what was once obscure development material into a preserved piece of the game's history.
Pipo Saru 2001 was a Japanese Ape Escape spin-off released for PlayStation 2. A North American version was reportedly planned under the name Ape Escape 2001, but it never received a commercial release.
Because of its limited release and unusual history, it remains one of the more mysterious entries in the series.
Ape Escape also appeared on promotional discs, magazine releases and special demos. Some of these versions contain material that was never included in the ordinary retail releases. (I mention this in more detail on the "Media" > "Promos" pages)
These small releases are important because they can preserve early builds, advertisements, videos or other material that might otherwise disappear.
During the late 1990s and 2000s, Ape Escape had several official websites and promotional pages. Many of these sites are no longer online.
Archived copies, screenshots and saved pages can therefore be extremely useful when researching the history of the series. (I mention this in more detail on the "Links" page)
Lost media is not always a completely missing game. Sometimes it is a prototype, a demo, an advertisement, an old website or a tiny piece of promotional material.
Even small pieces can tell us how a game changed during development and how it was presented when it was new. Keeping these things documented means future Ape Escape fans do not have to rely entirely on memories of material that disappeared years ago.