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Factor 5 / White Harvest: Wii Project Cancelled

Shiggy

Member
A curse seems to lie on Factor 5.
Cancellation of Pilotwings GCN, cancellation of the Rogue Squadron Trilogy, the quality of Lair and the subsequent termination of their contract with Sony and - last but not least - the Brash disaster and the shutdown of the US studio. And those are only the publically known letdowns.

As we have got to know, former Factor 5 assets and projects were transferred to the new start-up "White Harvest LLC", basically Factor 5 just with less employees and without PS3/X360 projects. While the lawsuit - which was filed by former Factor 5 employees - said that White Harvest LLC resumed work on Project Blue Harvest (a new Rogue Squadron title for Wii), there was another game in development which was cancelled only last month. Started in February, the project is said to have been a conversion of a large open world game, probably Superman. However, it seems as if the publisher (EA?) did not have enough faith in the game. As a result, layoffs happened again.

Nevertheless, White Harvest LLC continues their work on another Wii game which may or may not be announced this year. It is also noteworthy that Achim Moller reports that there are multiple Factor 5 projects for Wii. Sadly, it cannot be confirmed whether this includes the cancelled project or whether there is another Wii project in development at the studio. News may hit at this months gamescom though.
 

gabe90

Member
This is interesting. Even without a proper source, I am grateful for any updates on the status of F5, and/or what remains of the old team.

Hopefully they can complete work on a new (quality) Rogue Squadron game, and we can support them and get them back on their feet.
 
How did they get the Star Wars Licence? Do they still hold one?

Are they still a good dev? I remember hearing the RS team have all gone their seperate ways.

Are they still based in Germany? I have faith in german efficiency.

Anyway lets say they finish a game, and it goes on to sell sub 100k PAL land. They still get shut down. Or they make a really good game, let us assume 8/10 reviews, and they spent quite a budget to get there, then they fall even harder. Unfortunately, they are a team, that need to backed by a major publisher, and have the sole responsibility of releasing high quality titles, to build up a strong library of AAA games, without much influence of profit/loss. I think Nintendo should do the honors, assuming of course they are still a quality dev. Or their technical skills should be merged into NST.

Becasue, I just don't see a bright future, from a business perpective. Another Clover.
 

Shiggy

Member
[Nintex] said:
So a new Rogue Squadron is going to happen?

I have no confirmation for that. It was only said in the lawsuit. However, it would make sense since the project is said to have been titled "Blue Harvest", whereas Superman was called "Blue Steel".

durendal said:
I hope the canceled game was a Superman conversion and not this game.

That's a Wii game afterall which is by no means a conversion of an open world game.


the thoroughbred said:
How did they get the Star Wars Licence? Do they still hold one?

Are they still a good dev? I remember hearing the RS team have all gone their seperate ways.

Are they still based in Germany? I have faith in german efficiency.

Anyway lets say they finish a game, and it goes on to sell sub 100k PAL land. They still get shut down. Or they make a really good game, let us assume 8/10 reviews, and they spent quite a budget to get there, then they fall even harder. Unfortunately, they are a team, that need to backed by a major publisher, and have the sole responsibility of releasing high quality titles, to build up a strong library of AAA games, without much influence of profit/loss. I think Nintendo should do the honors, assuming of course they are still a quality dev. Or their technical skills should be merged into NST.

Becasue, I just don't see a bright future, from a business perpective. Another Clover.

In case they work on a RS game, they would have to work together with LucasArts. The RS team still seems to be part of White Harvest, at least I haven't heard anything different.
And yes, Factor 5 GmbH is based in German. Before the US studio was closed Factor 5 GmbH had less than 10 employees, I don't know whether that has changed since then, but I doubt it. The core of the US studio (which was shutdown) formed White Harvest LLC and works on the former Factor 5 USA projects for Factor 5 GmbH now. Confusing, right.
So why should get shut down? As far as I can see they've got a major publisher backing them up and they are also trying to get rid of their problems. LucasArts seems to be confirmed - and I wouldn't be surprised if there was another major publisher with them.

All information can be found on LinkedIn, I don't want to be the troublemaker for now.
 
I could go for another Rogue Squadron for the Wii. Considering what they were able to do back at the launch of the Gamecube, I'm optimistic about whatever they have to offer for the Wii.
 

Shiggy

Member
laserbeam said:
So a superman game was cancelled? Oh well bring on Rogue Squadron!

My guess. A Superman game for PS3/X360 was cancelled at Factor 5. Could be that White Harvest wanted to ported that one to Wii now.
 

laserbeam

Banned
Shiggy said:
My guess. A Superman game for PS3/X360 was cancelled at Factor 5. Could be that White Harvest wanted to ported that one to Wii now.

Would make sense. It seems like Factor 5 wants to get as far away from the HD Twins as possible now and for understandable reasons.
 

[Nintex]

Member
Shiggy said:
To me, the leaked assets look like a Pilotwings game.
Well, assets mostly leak if a game is in trouble or when they're cancelled. I doubt that Lucas-Arts would allow designers to shop around for work using Star Wars properties.
 

Shiggy

Member
[Nintex] said:
Well, assets mostly leak if a game is in trouble or when they're cancelled. I doubt that Lucas-Arts would allow designers to shop around for work using Star Wars properties.

In this case, those assets were leaked because employees were made redundant. If the game was cancelled, we might have got more information about it. I also think we didn't get much information about the cancelled Superman because White Harvest wanted to do a Wii conversion.

All we know is that Factor 5 USA worked on two Wii games - not counting that Wii conversion. I also assume that those two Wii games are still in development and I hope for an announcement at gamescom.
 
Shiggy said:
In case they work on a RS game, they would have to work together with LucasArts. The RS team still seems to be part of White Harvest, at least I haven't heard anything different.
And yes, Factor 5 GmbH is based in German. Before the US studio was closed Factor 5 GmbH had less than 10 employees, I don't know whether that has changed since then, but I doubt it. The core of the US studio (which was shutdown) formed White Harvest LLC and works on the former Factor 5 USA projects for Factor 5 GmbH now. Confusing, right.
So why should get shut down? As far as I can see they've got a major publisher backing them up and they are also trying to get rid of their problems. LucasArts seems to be confirmed - and I wouldn't be surprised if there was another major publisher with them.

All information can be found on LinkedIn, I don't want to be the troublemaker for now.



Factor 5's first Lucasarts project is probably Rebel Assault 2 for PS1, if I'm not mistaken.
 

Afrikan

Member
laserbeam said:
So a superman game was cancelled? Oh well bring on Rogue Squadron!

as far as Superman....maybe, if possible, EA can get the devs who worked on Ironman.

hey, I only played the demo...............but I liked it

504x_iron_man_2_comiccon.jpg
 

[Nintex]

Member
Teetris said:
There was a pilotwings gcn? Goddamnit.
Yes there was, announced by Iwata at E3 2003 I think. He said that F5 was going to build another game for the GameCube. But Nintendo wanted to release it on their next system(Revolution/Wii) so they delayed it. Factor 5 had grown alot since Rebel Strike, they wanted to expand further and jumpstart on the next generation but Nintendo took things slowly. They kept giving Nintendo ideas for their next console and Nintendo was still ironing things out in 2005. Factor 5 grew impatient, expected another GameCube like failure and sided with Sony instead and the Pilotwings project was shelved.
 

Shiggy

Member
Some updates on this topic.
There are still two other Wii games by Factor 5. One has a publisher (I assume this is Rogue Squadron), the other one does not. Both are to be finished this year, that's why I wonder that none of them have been announced yet.

The cancelled Wii port may have been Superman but it may have been something else. A list of open-world games published by Electronic Arts would be helpful.

In future, Factor 5 might develop games for iPhone.
 

Danthrax

Batteries the CRISIS!
Thanks for the update.

I half expect Iwata to say at the Nintendo October conference, "Oh BTW, we're releasing a new Rogue Squadron game next month in NA, in Q1 in Japan. Enjoy"
 
A curse seems to lie on Factor 5.
Cancellation of Pilotwings GCN, cancellation of the Rogue Squadron Trilogy, the quality of Lair and the subsequent termination of their contract with Sony and - last but not least - the Brash disaster and the shutdown of the US studio. And those are only the publically known letdowns.
Seems generous to call that a curse. In most other industries, they'd straight up call it incompetence.
 

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
I really wouldn't mind a Rogue Squadron Trilogy. The improved multiplayer version of RS2 that was included in RS3 was a nice treat.

That said, this whole Factor 5 / White Harvest business seems to have turned into a huge shit-show in recent years. Ugh.
 
Danthrax said:
I half expect Iwata to say at the Nintendo October conference, "Oh BTW, we're releasing a new Rogue Squadron game next month in NA, in Q1 in Japan. Enjoy"
that would be huge :D



thanks for the update!
 
Hopefully this new company kept the amazing technical talent Factor 5 had and did away with the horrible game designers. After a certain point, every game they made was technologically better...but played worse. Imagine if the technology behind Lair had been put into a *good* game!
 

Shiggy

Member
Wow, that's pretty great. Then we can say for sure that the flight project is Pilotwings.

Still, I'm not quite sure whether their Nintendo-published title or whether their LucasArts game has lost its publisher. For one of their games the publisher is pending at this moment.
 
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