Thanos

Warning: the following news may have you pining for 'the good old days' and thinking back wistfully to when EA wasn't fouling up good Star Wars games with lootbox nonsense.

Erstwhile Nintendo Life contributor Liam Robertson has noted on Twitter a recent movement of a prominent industry figure under the considerable umbrella of Epic Games:

Julian Eggebrecht
The man himself - Most Misspelt Surname Award just out of shot — Image: Julian Eggebrecht

For readers too young to remember, Julian Eggebrecht used to head up Factor 5, the sadly now-defunct studio that worked technological wonders with the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series on N64 and GameCube. Before that the company had a history with the Turrican series, notably producing classic Super Turrican games on SNES, which recently reappeared on the beautiful Analogue Super Nt console with material that had to be cut from the original game due to memory restrictions. Nintendo also consulted Factor 5 as the GameCube was being developed; Eggebrecht's company developed middleware tools for the console.

He'd been trying to revive the Rogue Squadron series on Wii with a compilation game, but the project got canned and Factor 5 shut down in 2009 leaving only prototype videos and whispers on the internet. His return to a frontrunning company in the gaming space is cause for excitement for anyone who looks back on Factor 5's output with fondness.

Now before you jump to the wrong conclusion, we're not suggesting that any kind of revival is on the cards. Thanos' appearance in Fortnite is hardly enough of a Disney link to pin our fanboy hopes of a Rogue Squadron revival on (or a 'Poe-gue Squadron', if you will). Anybody who's fired up Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader on GameCube recently can tell you just how well it still holds up, though - even on modern TVs through sub-optimal connections and cables.

While it's extremely unlikely that this signals anything at all beyond Eggebrecht lending his considerable expertise and technical know-how to Epic Games, it's sure got us dreaming.

RS

Check out this feature on the making of Rogue Leader to find out why this news has got us all teary-eyed and nostalgic.

'But you didn't mention Lair!' we hear you cry. Nope, you're right. Didn't mention Rebel Strike either - let us dream! Share your ponderances below...

[source twitter.com]