propoganda-games posts

It's not a good day at Propaganda Games. The Vancouver-based development studio owned by Disney Interactive is experiencing mass layoffs following the cancellation of one of the studio's two games, the movie-based RPG Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned. The game was first announced back in May 2009 and was due for release sometime in 2011 until today's cancellation announcement.

According to Kotaku, as many as 100 people have been let go at Propaganda Games this week. While not stating exact numbers, Disney Interactive did confirm that the company's development teams have been consolidated from two teams to just one. The remaining team members are completing work on the upcoming Tron Evolution which is still scheduled to be released on December 7.

In 1982, Disney took a bold risk with the release of the movie Tron, a film set largely inside a fictional world in the computer and made largely with CGI. It was different and new and at the time the movie didn't get a huge box office reception. However the legacy of that movie, and of the arcade games it spawned, have influenced the world at large, and game and computer programmers in particular, for years to come.

While developer Monolith released Tron 2.0 in 2003 for PC owners as a sequel to the movie, Disney decided later to create a true movie sequel in Tron Legacy which is due in theaters on December 17. On December 7, Disney Interactive and developer Propaganda Games will release Tron Evolution for the PC and other platforms. This action-adventure game serves as a prequel to the new movie. Big Download got one of the game's designers Dan Bourdage to give us some more info on the game including some PC specific features.

The light cycles are getting closed to being revved up again. Publisher Disney Interactive has just announced that Tron Evolution, a prequel game to the upcoming film Tron Legacy, will ship for the PC and other platforms on December 7. That's just 10 days before Tron Legacy heads to movie theaters.

Our sister site Joystiq reports that Tron Evolution will be getting a Collector's Edition,. That edition will cost a whopping $139 and, among other things comes with a toy version of the movie's iconic light cycle. Unfortunately the Collector's Edition is only slated for the PS3 and Xbox 360 ports. At least PC gamers will be getting some Tron-based gaming mice and keyboards.

During this evening's evening's Spike TV Video Game Awards, more info was revealed on the new upcoming Tron game. It now has an official title, Tron Evolution, and will be developed by Disney Interactive' s internal developer Propaganda Games (who last developed Turok and are also working on another upcoming Disney Interactive game, Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Dammed.

The game will be released in late 2010 around the time the upcoming movie Tron Legacy will be released to theaters. The movie's lead actress Olivia Wilde announced during the awards ceremony that she will be participating in some way with the game The trailer showed off some light cycle racing combined with some third person action gameplay.