Canceled Star Wars Rogue Squadron Game Details Emerge

Julian Eggebrecht, the former President of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron developer Factor 5, shared some details about a canceled Rogue Squadron collection and other games the studio worked on but never released before it shuttered.

"As you might remember, it leaked from LucasArts that we were working on a trilogy compilation, and that was actually for the [original] Xbox," Eggebrecht said on IGN's Nintendo Voice Chat podcast. The game would have included Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Star wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, and Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, all reworked for the first Xbox, but the project was canceled by LucasArts, which Disney closed in 2013 after it acquired the company alongside LucasFilm.

Eggebrecht said that Factor 5 then began working on a Rogue Squadron game for Xbox 360 that would have been the first to introduce online multiplayer to the series. Star Wars Rogue Squadron: X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, as the project was called, emphasised cooperative multiplayer, where players reenacted famous space battles from the movies.

"The moment it [Rogue Squadron] was cancelled, Shu[hei] Yoshida from Sony basically held out his hand and basically said 'come on, guys, come on to the PlayStation team. We're still looking for PlayStation 3 launch titles.'"

That game eventually became the PlayStation 3, dragon-flying launch title, Lair, because Sony wanted to have their own IP.

Eggebrecht said that Factor 5 later even tried bringing the Rogue Squadron collection to Wii, but that they couldn't finish the project because of the financial crisis of 2008, which eventually led to Factor 5 going out of business.

The Rogue Squadron series, in case you're not familiar with it, let players fly the original trilogy's iconic spaceships in a series of missions, some of which were also based on the movies. The last game in the series, Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, was released on GameCube in 2003.

For even more details on Factor 5's canceled Star Wars projects, give the Nintendo Voice Chat a listen.