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Project Fortress Cancelled



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Haeralis

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Final Fantasy XII spin-off Fortress 'suspended' - Final Fantasy XIII-2 for Xbox 360 News - VideoGamer.com

Fortress - the Final Fantasy XII spin-off set in the world of Ivalice – has been cancelled and will not be getting a release.
Speaking to VideoGamer behind closed doors at E3, FFXII-2 director Motomu Toriyama revealed that Fortress "won’t be released."
"Suspended " he added.
Fortress was originally in development at Swedish developer GRIN – the developers of 2009’s Bionic Commando reboot – but Square Enix deemed that the quality of the game was not up to scratch and decided to cancel the project.
GRIN has since filed for bankrpucy.
It was reported that development on Fortress had moved to another studio, but this has clearly been put to a stop, too.
Asked whether future Final Fantasy installments could ever be developed by a western studio, Yoshinori Kitase responded;
"Quite honestly, we can't really see it happening."


Bankrupted Studio Says Square Enix Demanded Code by Fax, Didn't Recognize FFXII Screenshots



In a feature story published today in Sweden, the founders of GRIN lay their studio's precipitous demise at Square Enix's feet, saying the publisher reneged on payments during the development of a Final Fantasy game and saddled them with ridiculous requirements as the project went sour.
This is according a story (translated via Google) published today by Aftonbladet, an often provocative tabloid but, with 1.2 million readers, a newspaper of record for Sweden. In direct quotes, co-founders Ulf and Bo Andersson allege that Square Enix didn't pay a cent on a roughly $20 million (USD) contract for "Fortress," (concept art pictured) the code name for a Final Fantasy spinoff that diverged from the series' JRPG roots. The Anderssons say they met all project milestones up to the company's August 2009 bankruptcy.
As the relationship deteriorated, the Anderssons say Square Enix sent them a strange demand: Fax us the game's code, including the project's music files. "It is as silly as it sounds," Bo Andersson said (Google translation.) "It is an impossible requirement, you can not send ASCII or binary codes on the fax. It is backward. Really retarded. It was almost a criminal activity."
Square Enix then said GRIN had not been sending its milestone work to the right department, that it should have been filed with the publisher's legal division, an unusual requirement. Square Enix also started complaining that they didn't like the game's Nordic style, even though they'd asked for that at the outset, and is presumably why they went to GRIN in the first place.
Feeling like they'd been set up to fail, GRIN sent Square Enix an image taken from Final Fantasy XII saying it was a production shot from "Fortress." The Anderssons say Square Enix replied "It does not look like Final Fantasy."
"Then we realized that whatever we do ... they have decided," Bo Andersson said. (Google translation).
The remainder of the story chart's GRIN's rise and fall and the Anderssons' resulting debts and disappointment, especially in light of successful Swedish developers such as DICE (Battlefield) and Markus Persson, the creator of the indie hit Minecraft. Again, it's a Google translation, but the piece is reasonably straightforward and readable.
"We wanted to come in and revolutionize Final Fantasy, which is exactly what they need," said Andersson. "The latest version sucks of course."


lol@squareenix




Other links:


GRIN founders say Square Enix turned their smiles upside down | Joystiq


Games On Net :: General News: GRIN Founders Blast Square Enix
 

Athel

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re: Project Fortress

God damn it. After all those concept arts from Fortress were released, I was intrigued, and pissed that it had fallen apart. But now SE is criticizing GRIN's work? That just doesn't seem cool. They're complaining about how it doesn't feel like Final Fantasy, but if they didn'y want something different done, why give them the project at all?

I'm angry at Square for going back on the word and upset for GRIN because Fortress seemed like it could have been interesting.
 

Narukami

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re: Project Fortress

Haha! I had never even heard of this before reading that article... Shows you how big it was supposed to be.
 

Monkey

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Re: Project Fortress

This is missing huge chunks of the story. It was Grin's incompetence that led to Square Enix' apathy towards the company.
 

Shamdeo

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Re: Project Fortress

old newz bro

but

I like how everyone ignores how GRIN was practically bankrupt before Square-Enix appraoched them from delayed payments for their moviegamez. And being "set up to fail" has no implicatons for Square-Enix at all other than them losing money and makes no logical business sense. Sure, I'd be mad if my dev studio went bankrupt, but lashing out at an easy scapegoat is just childish. I want to see them provide proof that this all took place. Sure, Square-Enix has piss-poor management right now, but some of the claims are pretty outlandish such as the faxing of information between companies. Really what takes the skepticism cake is the fact they make asspained comments about Final Fantasy XIII sucking and that Square-Enix is trying to sabotage them.

I don't buy all of it.

But hey, let's all get on the bandwagon amirite?
 

Haeralis

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Re: Project Fortress

old newz bro

Yeah, those other three links are old but the one about Square officially saying that it was cancelled and will never be released at E3 was just a few days ago.

Also the game looked awful, because it was made by GRIN.

The only thing we saw of it was a tech demo, and that's like saying you wouldn't want FFXIII based on this pic alone.

sa_25.jpg
 

Zul

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Re: Project Fortress

I can't say if he's giving the whole story(likely not), "usually" there's dirt on both ends.

Though...

Asked whether future Final Fantasy installments could ever be developed by a western studio, Yoshinori Kitase responded;
"Quite honestly, we can't really see it happening."
Sorry that companies beating the living shit out of Square on the MMO market (and in general, aren't disorganized to hell) are not good enough for them, it would be nice if he didn't think that every western company=GRIN.
 

Zul

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Re: Project Fortress

That's not really what they're implying.


It really comes off that way initially. I suppose a less negative way to see it is that he really doesn't feel other companies "get it" when it comes to developing an FF game(as the tech demo for fortress looked very, very different than what you would expect out of Square, fighting was rather "clunky").

What do you think he meant then?
 

Jackstin

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Re: Project Fortress

What do you think he meant then?

That it is the centrepiece of Square Enix's entire videogame portfolio, and as such, it is unlikely to be developed by anyone but SE's core development teams.


The only thing we saw of it was a tech demo, and that's like saying you wouldn't want FFXIII based on this pic alone.

sa_25.jpg

It would be foolish to judge the game based on an extremely early tech demo. But as I said, it looked awful because it was being made by GRIN who deal almost exclusively in making terrible videogames.
 

Shamdeo

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Re: Project Fortress

They are saying that they don't see a title their flagship franchise being developed by an outside development studio in the future; they tried it and it didn't work out. It's not a slam against Western studios or their practices.

Also I never heard Square-Enix call any of GRIN's games sucky. :X
 

Oracle Spockanort

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Oh wow...Isn't this old news? The concept didn't look all that good though, to be honest. The concept art was beautiful, but at the same time it wasn't something I could see in the world of Ivalice.

And GRIN's accusations make them seem like they weren't also the ones at fault for everything. They already made awful games and were already a dying company. Of course, SE made a dick move commissioning GRIN in the first place...I'm guessing they did it as an experiment...The company was already floundering so even if they had delivered SE what they were expecting, I doubt it would have saved them.

SE screwed them over? So what. They were already three feet under and digging their grave deeper.
 

Jackstin

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I heard about this before June 9th, though. At least GRIN's complaining about how SE ripped them off.

GRIN has been complaining about SE since they shut down, because SE quite frankly messed them about, although I don't blame them. SE saw that GRIN were dying and decided not to pay the money they owed, as it would only postpone the demise. GRIN obviously believed that they could have stayed in business if they'd been given the funds they were owed.

With regards to this recent news, it was believed by many that SE had given the Fortress project to another studio, however we only knew a few days ago that it was definitely cancelled. That is the update.
 
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