The Force Unleashed tells the story of Darth Vader's secret apprentice on a secret mission.
It was revealed today that Lucasarts, which has been downsizing it's development teams for a few weeks now and closing down a few internal studios, has also spread the bad news to the team behind
The Force Unleashed - otherwise known as the only good-looking
Star Wars game since
Jedi Knight II.
Lucasarts announced lay-offs only a few weeks ago, but stressed that no announced games were being canceled or delayed as a result and that the company was very much committed to
milking the Star Wars franchise internal development still.
Reports indicade that several of long-standing members of Lucasarts' development teams had been fired, including those who had previously worked on the
Grim Fandango,
X-Wing and
Full Throttle games.
Joystiq spoke to one ex-member of the
Force Unleashed team, who said that the lay-offs had come just as work on the game was starting to wind down. The source, who wished to remain anonymous, said the remnants of the development team would now be unable to produce a sequel without re-staffing if the game proved successful.
The main worry now seems to be that if Lucasarts does need to re-staff to complete current projects or take on new ones then it may have to re-staff with new developers or out-source to external studios, which may affect the direction and feel of the game.
Does
The Force Unleashed still have you interested, or were you turned off by Lucasarts long ago? Let us know what you think in
the forums.
Get a gamecube and Star Wars Rogue Squadron II.. doesn't get any better than that as far as X-Winging goes.
The game is pretty much done. Right now they are just bug fixing and adding polish. It should not affect it very much. It sucks that good devs have to loose their jobs. Console games are selling as good as ever yet companies still have to resort to layoffs? Sounds like bad management to me.
I would love to see a new x-wing/tie fighter game, theres been a steep decline in the past few years of good space combat simulators.
Hm. I wonder if I can get Tachyon: The Fringe running again? That was a fun game - it had Bruce Campbell doing the voice acting in it, too, IIRC.
And very little beats the X-Wing Collectors CD, TIE Fighter Collectors CD and X-Wing Alliance for Star Wars space combat games. :D Those three are the trinity of that genre. ;)
Is there a Star Wars mod for Flight Simulator X?
They don't need to.. But patches are often made mandatory downloads for 360 and PS3 games (well, not entirely sure about PS3 games.. but 360 definitely)... where as with a PC, patches are always released, but it's up to the user to make sure they're installed.
I suppose both systems have their benefits.
I love pretty much every game you listed, Freespace 1/2 and Tachyon are pretty much the top of that genre imho! Hopefully with Interplay reborn they'll do a Freespace 3!
But then Vista will happily play XwingvsTie Fighter :)
The Force Unleashed is running late as it is already, and I'd have thought they'd want to get it finished, released and start making some of their cash back on the game... getting rid of developers doesnt seem the way to get that done. Hopefully it should be a quality game, but in a world where advanced features and good quality takes time to make, can they really compete with the casual gaming likes of Peggle and others, that could be completely done by a team of 5 in a couple of weeks? I hope so, but the way the industry is going at the moment my hopes are sinking.
Sucks that it isn't coming to the PC... guess I shall have to use it as my excuse to buy a 360 after all this time. Although what I dont get is the reason they gave in one interview for not releasing it on the PC was that due to the range in ability of systems most people would have to have the settings turned down which wouldnt provide the experience as it should be, yet they're releasing it on the DS and the PSP... are lucasarts trying to say that most PCs are less powerful than handhelds these days?
Just looked at TFU website... very flashy. Lucasarts should take note... less time on flashy website => more time on flashy game itself!
(Good music though, hope the stuff in game is as good)
At least we know one member of the Lucasarts team is safe and sound... The Voodoo Lady has an "unbreakable five-game deal with Lucasarts". :D