GRIN was a video game developer based in Stockholm, Sweden. Founded by Bo and Ulf Andersson in 1997, that developed many popular games, as Ballistics, Bionic Commando 2009 and a couple of Tom Clancy´s Ghost Recon titles. Sadly on the 12 August 2009 GRIN filed for bankruptcy and the studio had to close down. Before the closure of the company, the developer was working on a mysterious Final Fantasy spinoff title for Square-Enix, that was known with the code-name “Fortress”. [Info From Wikipedia]
As we can read in GRIN’s official website:
It is with a heavy heart we announce today that GRIN has been forced to close its doors. This as too many publishers have been delaying their payments, causing an unbearable cashflow situation. [...] Looking back at twelve years of games, titles such as Ballistics, Bandits, GRAW 1 & 2, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Terminator: Salvation, Bionic Commando and our unreleased masterpiece that we weren’t allowed to finish; it has been a great ride.
Some early assets and concept arts for this unreleased project were found thanks to Hey Hey and Kotaku, so at least some documents of its existence can still be preserved. There are not many info on the story of this Final Fantasy spinoff or its gameplay, but it seems that it could have been an action RPG related to Final Fantasy XII. It’s currently unknown if Square-Enix could try to fund the project with a different developer, but as they have written on Destructoid, it seems that S-E still have few millions of debts with GRIN for their work.
Thanks to Dominarul Cel Elf, Brad and Robert Seddon for the contributions!
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Videos:
U64 is an archive with articles, screens and videos for cancelled, beta & unseen videogames. Every change & cut creates a different gaming experience: we would like to save some documents about this evolution for curiosity, historic and artistic preservation.
4 Responses to Final Fantasy Fortress [Cancelled - Xbox 360 / PS3]
padre
January 17th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Tech Demo Footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1U_0EoWkIE
monokoma
January 17th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Thanks Padre :) I have added the video in the page! If square will take it down from YT, i’ll re-upload it somehwere else
Spartacus
January 19th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
SE just removed the video >:(
But you can still find it here (in higher quality than it was on YouTube):
http://www.multiupload.com/1VPAXS2LHP
monokoma
January 19th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
Thanks you Spartacus! :) I’m going to reupload that better version somewhere else later