Thornado [N64 – Prototype]

Thornado [N64 – Prototype]

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Also know as “Turrican 64”, Thornado was an action game / third person shooter that was in development at Factor 5 as a spiritual successor to the Turrican series, but with some inspiration from Metroid. This project was originally announced for the Nintendo 64, but it seems that only an early prototype / tech demo was created before it was put on hold, probably because Factor 5 was too busy to work on Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

Originally they wanted to call the game “Turrican 64” but they could not settle on an agreement with the rights owner of the “Turrican” franchise, Rainbow Arts / Softgold. Eggebrecht said that it was internally referred to as “Thornado”, a mixture of “Thor” and “Tornado”.

The game would had featured eight levels with shooting and puzzles elements. Additionally, the game had two protagonists, a male and a female  The music would have been done by Chris Huelsbeck again and a sample is still available to download from the official F5 website.

As we can see from the few screens below, F5 realized a nice Target Render for Thornado 64, that was used to show how the game would have looked on the Nintendo console. The scene shows a scenario from the end of time, in which you had to jump over cars, shots to enemies and then fight an huge final boss. That’s only a tech demo though and probably they never created a playable one.

After some time and many delays, Thornado was cancelled for the N64 and Factor 5 tried to move it to the new “Dolphin” hardware (later know as the GameCube). As we know, even Thornado GameCube was cancelled and after so many years the project vanished forever from the gaming world.

Thanks a lot to Celine for the contribution!

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3 thoughts on “Thornado [N64 – Prototype]

  1. Ross Sillifant

    Despite the tremendous gameplay, Turrican never succeeded
    mass-market success in the U.S. That was then and this is now.
    Factor 5, creators of the aforementioned Turrican games, is now
    hard at work on Turrican 64 (working title) for the Nintendo 64.

    For Turrican fans, the story mostly takes place on earth and is
    a prequel to the other Turrican games. Some of the levels even
    take place in famous U.S. cities and locations, but the final
    confrontation will be somewhere else (not space, though). The
    story goes back to describe how the Freedom Forces came into
    existence, and how a renegade scientist group equipped them with
    awesome technology (including the Turrican assault suit) when an
    alien armada invaded earth.

    Like just about every other N64 game, Turrican 64 is 3-D with
    a dynamic camera. All the characters are comprised of polygons
    (both motion-captured and hand animation), and there will be many
    special graphical effects, like light sourcing and particle
    effects, found in the game. The aural side of the game is just as
    impressive with surround sound and tons of speech.

    Turrican 64 (working title) is currently going to be a 96
    megabit cartridge game. And, like many other American-developed
    games, the game will be designed for possible future use with the
    64DD. Although there isn’t a publisher for the game yet, one can
    be sure someone will pick up the publishing rights to the game.

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