Rolando 3 canceled, but the franchise lives on

After the not-exactly-phenomenal commercial reception of Rolando 2, iPhone developer ngmoco decided to swap to a free-to-play model for all its future titles. It's a model which led to the development of the extremely competent iPhone shooter Eliminate, but the new business model also led to the unfortunate death of the third installment in the Rolando franchise. The developer's co-founder, Neil Young, explained to IGN, "we said to ourselves, 'Look. If we can't make the game free-to-play, we're not going to release it.' And Rolando 3 as it was envisioned at that time was not a free-to-play product."

However, don't think you've seen the end of the Loco Roco-esque platformer. Young later confirmed that "at the appropriate moment we'll deliver a new Rolando experience that takes full advantage of everything we've learned from the free-to-play world." Sounds like we'll eventually get a new Rolando and, better yet, it won't cost us any Rolandough.