GRIN's 'Unreleased Masterpiece:' Final Fantasy Game For Square
Was a Final Fantasy project codenamed "Fortress" GRIN's self-proclaimed "unreleased masterpiece?" So say several former employees, including the LinkedIn profiles of former GRIN artist Tomislav Spajic and Erik Lindqvist.
As Fruit Brute and I were dishing on GRIN's latest games during the podcast, we couldn't help but notice that the recently-deceased developer's last few games were a pair of very high-profile film-to-game jobs, Terminator: Salvation and Wanted: Weapons of Fate, and that the latter boasted Riddick designer Pete Wanat, who helped make that game one of the few film games more successful than the actual film upon which it was based.
All of that high-profile, costly effort may well have doomed the studio, but it also lends credence to the notion that GRIN was working on something big and shiny for Square Enix, especially given Square's push to reconquer the West.
Alas, the closest we will likely ever get to the alleged masterpiece that might have been "Fortress" is Lindqvist's LinkedIn description of his recent work experience:
During 2009 I've been working on the preproduction for an unannounced, and now canceled project with the production name 'Fortress' for Square Enix.
Suddenly GRIN's closing seems a lot more sobering, doesn't it, my fellow fabulous Final Fantasy fans?
Grin's 'unreleased masterpiece' was a Final Fantasy game codenamed 'Fortress' [Joystiq]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany, Video Games on 20 August 2009
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: final fantasy, fortress, grin, square enix, unreleased masterpiece
The buzz going around the net is that Fortress was going to be part of the Final Fantasy XII universe, and was going to be some sort of action game. Definitely sounds interesting.
I'll be very sad if it was a shooting game that revolved around Balthier. I could always use more Balthier in my life.
I'm still going to say that the studio's track record left me pretty cold outside of Bionic Commando Rearmed. the games they made that interested me were always horrible, and the others don't seem to have faired better.
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Susan
http://onlinemariogames.net