Rogue Squadron
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Factor 5 president details canceled Star Wars projects
Factor 5 earned plenty of goodwill from Star Wars fans with its Rogue Leader series across the Nintendo 64 and GameCube, but the studio planned to do more with the universe beyond those games. During an episode of IGN's Nintendo Voice Chat, former Factor 5 president Julian Eggebrecht detailed the team's attempts to bring their Star Wars prowess to the Xbox, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii. Factor 5's lost efforts included a Rogue Leader trilogy collection for the original Xbox, complete with online multiplayer. Management at LucasArts was rapidly changing at the time, resulting in the project being canceled, though Eggebrecht doesn't remember specifically why. Factor 5 then moved on to a launch title for the Xbox 360 called "Rogue Squadron: X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter," which had players working as the Rebels' Red squadron in cooperative multiplayer fighting against Imperial forces. LucasArts' management wasn't sure if launch titles made sense for them at that time however, and the project was eventually canceled. Sony President Shu Yoshida contacted Factor 5 shortly after, but he was more interested in an internal PS3 launch project than the studio's work on Rogue Leader. The result was Lair, which Eggebrecht described as a "pretty big mistake" due to the PS3's complex architecture and the project's unreasonable ambitions for a launch title. When Factor 5's exclusivity window with Sony ended in 2007, the studio's gaze was set on the Wii. They reworked the Rogue Squadron trilogy project originally built for Xbox and added optional play styles (you could steer an X-Wing with the Wii wheel and manage its pedals with the Balance Board, for example). Beyond piloting ships, Factor 5's "Rogue Leaders" used the Wii Motion Plus for 1:1 lightsaber battles between 20 characters, complete with force powers. Rogue Leaders essentially ran on Lair's graphics engine at 60 frames-per-second and featured ducking and dodging beyond what's found in Wii Sports Resort.
Rumor: Factor 5 shuts down
The last we heard of Factor 5, they were thinking about a Rogue Squadron compilation. Now, it would seem the company has fallen on hard times, much like other game developers. That is, if you go by this forum post, which was allegedly made by IGN's Matt Casamassina and claims "inside sources" tipped him off to the studio's closing.Our overlords at Joystiq have made the appropriate inquiries and we'll be sure to update you all as soon as we can.[Via Joystiq]
Rumor: Factor 5 cuts 37 jobs
Speaking to a "well-placed source," Edge Online reports that Rogue Squadron developer Factor 5 laid off 37 employees on Friday, December 12th. This leaves around 38 workers to continue development on one or more projects which may or may not be canceled, depending on whose blog you read and how quickly it gets deleted from the internet.While most would speculate that the drama has its origin in Factor 5's botched deal with Brash, Edge's source claims, "The thing that bothers me the most about it all is they could have avoided all of this ages ago. It wasn't really the Brash deal going south that was the big problem, but it didn't help much either." According to the source, the last time Factor folks got so much as a fiver was on October 15th. That's grimmer than most of Lair's reviews.
Rumor: Rogue Squadron compilation locking S-foils in attack position
According to the latest issue of EGM, which just arrived in our mail box, Wii owners could be seeing Rogue Squadron make a return to a Nintendo console, as Q from the Rumor Mill is reporting that Lucasarts has licensed out the Rogue Squadron series of games. Sadly, we're not talking about a brand new game, but rather a compilation of the N64 and GameCube titles, all on one Wii disc. With the whole Play on Wii thing, it seems like this has a good chance of becoming true.Head past the break for the excerpt from the magazine.
Factor 5 fidgets with two PS3 e-distribution titles
Factor 5 is working on two games to be released via PlayStation 3's e-distribution network. According to a Gamasutra interview with company president Julian Eggebrecht, Factor 5 is excited to return to tacking on smaller projects, noting that "people who work on these two and a half year, three year projects have a chance ... to work on something small again."The developer is currently working on the gorgeous PS3 title Lair, pictured, and has a long history of making technically gorgeous games, making the Rogue Squadron series for both Nintendo 64 and GameCube. Given Factor 5's expertise and beauty and Sony's 500MB cap on downloads, we're excited to see what they can conjure.See Also: Joystiq impressions -- Lair (PS3)
