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[Updated] Sega Pulls The Plug On Aliens: Colonial Marines For Wii U
[Update] We received an expanded statement from Sega, which reads, "We are constantly looking at all areas of our business and in this case have made the decision to not continue development of the Wii U version. Rest assured that we have some fantastic developments for Wii U in the pipeline which we will announce at a later date."
Given that publishers have been shying away from Nintendo's console, this additional piece of information helps to clarify that this decision was about Aliens: Colonial Marines and not the platform on which it was supposed to appear.
[Original Story]
This won’t come as a big surprise to anyone who has been following the terrible tale of Aliens: Colonial Marines, but word has finally come down from Sega that the Wii U version has been canceled.
In a statement made to IGN, the publisher simply stated, “SEGA can confirm that the Wii U sku of Aliens: Colonial Marines is no longer in development.” The writing was on the wall when Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford commented last month that the release of that version was entirely in Sega’s hands.
The Borderlands studio wasn’t the only one involved in the development of the latest Aliens title. Three other developers were involved to varying degrees, with TimeGate Studios identified as the major contributor. In early March, studio president Adel Chaveleh confirmed that layoffs had taken place at TimeGate.
Aliens: Colonial Marines has also been the subject of an investigation by the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency, which “informally upheld” a complaint about significant differences between pre-release footage and retail code. The game did receive a hefty patch to fix a number of issues, but the damage had already been done. Critics, including our own Jeff Cork, panned the title for terrible AI and underpowered weapons among many other issues.
We’ve reached out to Sega with additional questions, and will provide an update should new information emerge.
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