Another day, another promising player-made remake of a big-budget developer's game gets shut down. Hardly surprising nowadays, but it's always a shame to see such ventures being forced to close—especially when being distributed for free. The Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Special Edition project is the latest to bite the dust, after its creators were "politely" asked by Lucasfilm to cease development of their ambitious remake.
"Our mission is to create a remake of this legendary game after more than 20 years, which nobody has attempted yet," says the creators' missions statement on Facebook of the remaster, which also promised high definition digital artwork, new animations, new music, new sound effects and new voiceovers.
Before Lucasfilm's intervention, the Fate of Atlantis Special Edition team had crafted a fully-functioning demo—which can still be downloaded on the game's site, but is set to be removed come Sunday, March 5.
Taking to its Facebook page to break the bad news, the game's team said:
"We have been asked politely by a new promoted Lucasfilm Head of business development person to stop developing and distributing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Special Edition demo. We will remove the downloading buttons from our website this Sunday (5th March 2017). We have been told that Lucasfilm don't want to share the Indy license with anyone right now, so we came up with other solution and we will see if that is going to work for them."
The game's creators don't go into detail regarding their proposed compromise, however do suggest they have "proved [their] skills" to Lucasfilm, and that it's "now up to them if they change their minds and start [supporting] independent developers."
The post continues: "Whatever the response will be, We are extremely proud of what we have done, it has been a great fun, we will love this project forever and we thank you all who participated or support us during this 'long-term, free-time' development… This is not the end of this project and this is not the end of any fans projects. Big companies need to understand that: 'All things come to him who waits.'"
Cheers, Kotaku UK.
