In a recent NVC podcast from IGN, president of Factor 5, Julian Eggebrecht, discussed the possibility of releasing cancelled Star Wars trilogy Rogue Leaders on Nintendo Switch.
For those unfamiliar, Rogue Leaders was a remix of the original trilogy; Rogue Squadron (N64), Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leaders (GC), and Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike (GC). It was initially planned for release on the Microsoft Xbox, but management issues at LucasArts meant the game was cancelled midway through development in 2003.
Factor 5 went on to dabble with titles for Xbox 360 and PS3 before coming back to Nintendo to complete the game for Wii. It featured updated graphics, a brand new lighting system, added motion controls, and MotionPlus based lightsaber duelling. Eggebrecht goes on to claim this was the best game Factor 5 ever made.
Unfortunately Rogue Leaders never saw the light of day after the financial crash in 2008 saw publisher LucasArts cancel the project, sending Factor 5 into liquidation. Today, Factor 5 still exist in a disbanded form, but Eggebrecht’s demeanour on the show suggests he was holding back some exciting news.
The TL;DW quote from Eggebrecht:
“Shall we just say it’s definitely something that in some way shape or form should come out of the archives. All the things that I think prevented that back in 2009 when we finished the game should be out of the way nowadays, so I think it’s just about the willingness of us spending some time on it, Disney/Lucasfilm playing along with it, and then EA must be a little in the mix. But we’ll see about that.”
[Chat about Rogue Leaders starts at 38 minutes]