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To the Devroom and Legends 3 Fans Everywhere

Jul 19, 2011 // GregaMan

Dear friends,

The MML3 project has not just changed my life, but actually encompassed it for months.  Seeing that project come to a close has been very difficult, and something I’ve tried to mentally deny, but alas, we have been confronted with the situation and must all face it together. 

As you know, the Mega Man Legends 3 Project has been one of sky-scraping ambition–to create a game which incorporates large quantities of tangible, meaningful input from the fans.

One of the fundamental aims of the Legends 3 Project was to provide the game’s loyal fans with a level of transparency the likes of which had never been offered by a major game developer. The team developing this game provided in-depth articles detailing the various processes that going into this game’s creation, from voice recording to the creation of 3D character models. They talked about the office atmosphere and all of the ups and downs of the game development process with a degree of candor that was, to be perfectly frank, often quite concerning for the rest of the company.

Why was it a concern to everyone else at the company? Because the thing is, there are tough realities in this industry that are largely left unpublicized for a good reason–because they’re tough. All games go through a multi-stage approval process, but most games are not brought to the public’s attention until that final approval has been met. With Mega Man Legends 3, exposing the fans to that process was part of the project’s core concept–to show everybody what it really means to create a game. We were all in it together here, for better or worse, and now together we must accept the outcome that many games ultimately face.

I know that many fans are extremely disappointed by this news. Please realize that this cancellation is no less of a blow for the dedicated staff who have been working on this project for most of a year now. Since Legends 3’s first conception, it has consumed most of the team’s waking hours. We have been living and breathing Mega Man Legends for months–We’ve spent hours upon hours in meetings, created vast amounts of content both in the game’s prototype and here in the Devroom, and there have even been multiple trips overseas to meet and discuss the game’s progress. To we who have been deeply involved in this project, it is more than a game–it is a symbol and a manifestation of the collective hard work, creativity, and vision shared by all of us. Not just a product, but an amalgam of minds.   

The decision to close this project after all it has meant comes as very difficult news to all staff members as well, but we must move on.

While it didn’t ultimately result in a game, it was a real look at game development in action, with all the excitement and disappointments that can entail.  We did not arrive at the destination we had hoped, but we thank you for coming on this journey with us.