Club Jade

IGN had multiple sources saying that the in-development Indiana Jones game has been canceled. Kotaku has a vague response from LucasArts that could mean anything.

I’m not sure exactly how long it takes to make the things, but I believe the last we heard of it was early footage/teasers for it around the same time as The Force Unleashed was getting teased – back before Celebration IV. I’m inclined to write it off… Particularly after the long, rumorful runup to the The Old Republic announcement, or the years of buzz overload (okay, there were a few delays) that paved the way for The Force Unleashed. On the other hand, with Bioware handling TOR and TFU out and about, maybe Indy is next up on the LucasArts plate. No doubt we’ll hear something… eventually.

LucasArts and Bioware debuted the first video documentary on the upcoming Old Republic MMO today, including some brand-new play footage.

Gamasutra reports that LucasArts and Bioware are holding a media event at LucasArts’ San Francisco office on October 21st. They describe the invite:

The postcard, which proclaims “The wait is over” and promises “the official unveiling of the game that’s been rumored about for years,” makes no explicit reference to Star Wars. It is branded with the LucasArts and BioWare logos and depicts floating robots and hooded figures in futuristic interior locations reminiscent of the sci-fi franchise.

It certainly sounds (and looks!) like KOTOR, but I guess we’ll see… (via)

Well, I’m still not all that enthused (can you tell?) but clearly a lot of other people are, because The Force Unleashed has already sold more than 1.5 million copies.

On that note: Will ‘Force Unleashed’ be the next ‘Star Wars’ film? I bet Uwe Boll is available!

Hey gamers, here’s one for your holiday lists: Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts, coming from Chronicle Books in November. The book is written by Rob Smith and will have a forward from George Lucas. I know you’d probably rather have an update of the X-Wing games, but such is life.

• LucasArts: The layoffs earlier this month also took out key members of the team for The Force Unleashed. (via)

• Politics: George is talking up Barak Obama again! While on Capitol Hill the other day, he said it’s “reasonably obvious” that the presidential candidate would be a Jedi.
• Sports: A filly named Shmi Skywalker? Why not?

ShackNews is reporting that yet more layoffs are coming after The Force Unleashed, with all remaining projects to be outsourced to third party developers.

Kotaku reported yesterday that LucasArts “has laid off approximately 50-100 of its employees.” (Just now confirmed.) The result? A windfall of rumormongering going around about their upcoming projects, including (of course) the long-awaited KOTOR 3/MMO.

• Lightsabre has part three of their talk with Lorne Peterson.

• The Fantasy Book Critic interviews Gregory Keyes, touching briefly on his Star Wars work.
• Toon Zone picks the brain of voice actor Bob Bergen, who’s talked Luke Skywalker for video games and the occasional Robot Chicken.

• Comics: DarkHorse.com has previews for Dark Times #11/Vector part 5 and Rebellion #14.

• Gaming: EU Cantina has an interview with LucasArts’ voice director David Collins.
• The Clone Wars: io9 asks what it would take to get you excited about The Clone Wars. My answer: Nothing. No matter what they do, it’s still the Clone Wars, isn’t it? Been there, done that.