Origin Cancels Jane's A-10

The curse of the high-end A-10 flight simulation continues: Origin Systems announced Friday that it is canceling the anticipated A-10 Warthog sim from the Jane's Combat Simulations line.

The move is an extension of Origin's shift of strategy, changing lanes from a boxed-game producer to an online games producer. This is not to say that Origin won't be doing boxed games (or any more Jane's games, for that matter), but this shift requires tangible resources - employees - and Origin wants to get started now, rather than later.

So Origin will break up the A-10 team for relocation among the different Origin and EA departments to help facilitate the transition. Origin still intends to release USAF, World War, and F/A-18 later this year, with several other unannounced titles due for 2000. Andy Hollis will remain in the EA family.

However, the lack of serious A-10 simulations continues; only a few (four perhaps) have been produced since the advent of commercial computer gaming - the most recent, Silent Thunder II from Sierra, being almost completely action-oriented. Longtime gamers will recall the ill-fated A-10 Avenger from then-Spectrum Holobyte or iA-10 that died when Interactive Magic wiped out its flight sim department iMagic Labs, just to mention a few.