Star Fox Adventures began development as Dinosaur Planet, which originally began development as a direct sequel to Diddy Kong Racing, starring Timber the Tiger (who himself was intended as the main character of DKR when it was Pro-Am 64, before Donkey Kong characters were incorporated into it). According to former Rare artist Kevin Bayliss in an interview in 2021, it was pitched as an adventure/racing hybrid where Timber, equipped with a rucksack, little fingerless gloves, and a baseball cap would go back in time and team up with a small dinosaur named Tricky, seemingly a younger form of the boss from the first DKR; interestingly, in 2026, Bayliss also claimed that Timber was going to be a galactic explorer that landed on Dinosaur Planet. According to Rare scribes in 2008, Wizpig, the main antagonist and final boss of the first Diddy Kong Racing, was to also be involved. It would seem a working title for this iteration of the game was Dino Island, going by several posts on former Rare employee Ed Bryan's Twitter account.

Eventually it was decided to rework the concept into an entirely new original IP with no story connections to DKR and two new main characters, named Sabre and Krystal, and also make it a full-on action-adventure game directly inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. DP/SFA's various racing segments are said to be remnants of the original DKR successor concept, and while he retained the name of the DKR boss (something Rare seems to regret), Tricky would wind up becoming his own distinct character. Several files within DP/SFA's data also mention Timber, obviously a remnant from when he was the star.

Sabre and Krystal were in turn eventually replaced by Fox McCloud as the main playable character when the game was rebranded into what we know today as Star Fox Adventures, though Tricky would remain as his sidekick and Krystal would remain as a main character.