Details On 3 Canceled Factor 5 STAR WARS: ROGUE SQUADRON Games
If the cancellation of Star Wars Battlefront 3, the Darth Maul video game, Star Wars: 1313 didn't piss you off enough at LucasArts; wait until you read about the cancellations of three Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games. Click to be disappointed.
Folks I don't know about you but my favorite video game of all time is Nintendo 64's Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. If you were a kid in the 90s and loved Star Wars and got a Nintendo 64; you'd know just what I am talking about. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron was a game that put you into the seats of all of the Rebel starships and engage in battles against the Empire. It got 2 sequels for the Nintendo Gamecube in Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rebel Leader and Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. They were just as awesome as the first game. Hell if I may say, the graphics to the Gamecube games still hold up. I mean look at that above image. The Rogue Squadron series is regarded as one of the best Star Wars video game series. So why wasn't there more games released? To sum up why the 3 following Rogue Squadron games were canceled: LucasArts. But the directions they wanted to take and what they wanted to do with the games is interesting enough to read further.
The first canceled game was a trilogy compilation of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron for the Xbox. In talking about it, former Factor 5 President Julian Eggebrecht said to IGN "As you might remember, it leaked from LucasArts that we were working on a trilogy compilation, and that was actually for the [original] Xbox". It was meant to be a collection of all 3 Rogue Squadron games. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rebel Leader, and Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. All remastered, in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron I's case, and reworked for the OG Xbox. Think of like Sony's upcoming Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection or Microsoft's Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
Why wasn't the game made? Well the team at Factor 5 had completed nearly fifty percent of this trilogy collection when a reportedly rocky and unstable environment at LucasArts led to its early cancellation.
The second attempt at a Rogue Squadron game wasn't a remaster but a completely new game entitled Star Wars Rogue Squadron: X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter for the Xbox 360. The game would be more focused on online multiplayer which hasn't been done before in the series. Eggebrecht talked about it saying "It [Rogue Squadron: X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter] was much more about groups, because it's always Rogue Squadron, right? So, you would be Red 5, together with the Reds essentially attacking, and there would be the Imperial side. And that would be the two factions duking it out in essentially the [Star Wars] movie battles, and then in additional battles." Sounds pretty promising and interesting idea to take the Rogue Squadron series in a new direction. Seems like EA and DICE is taking influence from that in the "Fighter Squadron" mode in their upcoming Star Wars: Battlefront.
Why was this game canceled? Development was underway when cancellation again haunted Factor 5. They were dubious of creating a launch title and also LucasArts decided to kill the project.
After the cancellation of Star Wars Rogue Squadron: X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter, Factor 5 took a break from Star Wars. Sony reached out to Factor 5 wanting them to make a launch title for Playstation 3. They did pitch the Rogue Squadron game but Sony wanted a more "internal" new game for the Playstation 3. The result was the game Lair which wasn't a success. "It was far too ambitious for a launch title. It was a pretty big mistake", Eggebrecht explains.
But after their contract with Sony expired, Factor 5 went back to making a Rogue Squadron game this time for the Wii entitled Star Wars Rogue Squadron: Rebel Leaders. The Wii game was basically the Rogue Squadron trilogy collection that was designed for the Xbox but just for the Wii. Factor 5 salvaged the code and the team found that the slightly-more-powerful Gamecube hardware found inside the Wii would make transitioning the game from an old generation to new relatively easy. Eggebrecht explains that making the game work on a modern console was only a matter of tweaking the already-existing systems in the half-finished game. "...we had our old trilogy project, which we had fifty percent done, which was basically putting Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike with new content, [along] with fixing some of the mistakes, redoing completely the cameras, and everything."
It was important to them that the trilogy would run on any possible control scheme for the Wii, including both the Gamecube controller and some of the Wii's peripherals. "...we wanted to support every single control that you could imagine. So, for the flight sequences, you could, for example, choose to have the Mario Kart wheel to actually control your X-Wing, together with the balance board, which would control the pedals.". Space combat wasn't the only focus. According to Eggebrecht, there were also speeder bike racing levels, third-person action sequences, and even lightsaber battles making the most of the Wii Motion Plus' 1:1 controls. With an all-new graphics engine had the game running at 60 frames per second (fps), with a visual fidelity Eggebrecht is still proud of. "Believe me, if you ever saw it running on the Wii at 60 [fps], it is by far - and I think I'm not overstating that - the technically most impressive thing you would ever see on [Wii]."
2 trailers for the game were also "leaked". If you would like to see what could have been, here they are:
So why on Earth wouldn't you publish a video game that is already completed and finished? The financial crisis of 2008 and the fact that Factor 5 had taken it upon themselves to self-fund the project in order to claim a larger "piece of the pie" once it was distributed. It didn't help that two of their potential publishers for other projects went bankrupt, and LucasArts was having "their own financial woes."
It should be noted that while this article is about the canceled Rogue Squadron games, there was one final project Factor 5 worked on that many of you may know about. After the cancellation of the third attempt at a new Rogue Squadron game Factor 5 went in a different direction for their next game. After working on games based on the biggest film series of all time, what did they do next? Try to make a game for the biggest superhero of all time. Likely Factor 5's final project was a Superman game. You see gaming publisher Brash Entertainment had the gaming license for DC characters. In case you are unfamiliar with Brash Entertainment, one of it's co-founders was Thomas Tull who is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Legendary Pictures who helped produce The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Hangover Trilogy, 300, Man of Steel and more films.
Back to the topic, Brash Entertainment had the rights to DC characters along with Eidos Interactive. Around the time Eidos had Rocksteady developing Batman: Arkham Asylum; Brash had Factor 5 working on a Superman game and they also had developer Bottlerocket Entertainment working on a Flash game. As luck would have it for Factor 5, the reason the Superman game was canceled was due to Brash Entertainment going out of business. There are videos and concept art of Factor 5's Superman game. You can view them here:
View post on imgur.com
So what negative emotions do you feel from this news? Angry? Hate? Disappointment? Sadness? Rage? Whatever emotion you feel, comment below let me know. Peace and remem---- No wait you know what. This news sucks. This isn't the type of news to stay classy about. Canceling an already finished game that all you had to do was publish that also included lightsbaer fights which everyone wanted a lightsaber game for the Wii is inexcusable. Good bye and to whoever thought it was a good idea to not publish an already completed game...