The Lost to debut on PCs

In the annals of game development, few titles have taken such a twisted road to release as The Lost. First announced in 2001, the game has gone through a series of developers, publishers, and platforms.

Originally developed by Irrational Games for the PlayStation 2, the game was shopped to various publishers--including Acclaim--before it was scooped up by Crave Entertainment. Soon after, the publisher announced the game would be coming to the Xbox as well as the PS2 in Q4 2002.

However, The Lost missed its holiday launch. Then, in February 2003, Crave Entertainment announced that it was shifting its focus to value-priced games. Only a few months later, The Lost was canceled for the PS2, and the title sat in development limbo.

Since then, little has been heard about The Lost, leading many to believe the game had been canceled. But not only is that that not the case, the title is now coming to the PC, according to Tony Garcia, CEO of FX Labs, an independent developer with offices in Seattle and Hyderabad, India.

"About 18 months ago FX Labs took over the game," Garcia told GameSpot. "We're now using the Unreal 2.5 engine to build a PC version, which will be released first. Then the game will come to the Xbox."

Garcia insisted that The Lost is still being "codeveloped" by Irrational, which was recently bought by Take-Two Interactive. And though the game still does not have a publisher, FX executive seemed confident Irrational's new owner would be receptive to being The Lost's publisher. "We'll be speaking with them first," said Garcia. "They're a logical first choice for the game." He declined "to commit" to a release window.