Dragon Hopper originally completed development and was slated for release in the Summer of 1996, being shown at E3 1996 and in the magazine Nintendo Power, but its release was cancelled due to the critical and commercial failure of the Virtual Boy. It would later see an official release in 2026 for the Nintendo Switch Online service alongside another unreleased Virtual Boy game, Zero Racers. The game's North American name in official marketing was changed to D-Hopper, a name originally used as an internal codename in the game's files, although the in-game title screen still uses the full Dragon Hopper name. It's believed this change was made because the trademark for the name "Dragon Hopper" had been claimed in 2024 by the online casino game developer Push Gaming.