Lair: What Went Wrong?

“Lair was a genuine screw-up by everybody involved, probably me the worst,” says Julian Eggebrecht, one of Factor 5’s co-founders, about the studio’s disappointing PlayStation 3 game. The approximately $25 million project, a game about dragons and fantasy warfare, took three years to develop, which included a yearlong delay. From faulty studio decisions, publisher strife and arguments regarding studio dynamics, Lair fought its way out from the studio that created it.

Lair itself did not ruin Factor 5 — although the circumstances didn’t help — but it ended a relationship with Sony and left the studio dangling in searching of a follow-up project that never came.

[Mithan]

Polygon is a terrible website, so refuse to click through and support them, but I enjoyed Lair when it came out.

[PhoenixUp]

I never thought I’d see the day where someone defended Lair

[Daver]

I enjoyed Lair a lot. For me it was a nice game not perfect but very good.

[SirKnight]

Lair was flawed. But you know Polygon are reaching when they have to go back 11 years to find a second-rate poor selling PlayStation game to criticise. Yet they consistently choose to ignore such analysis for the big games of recent times that have been cancelled by their favourite console manufacturer.

[UltraNova]

It was an ok experience with a lot of potential. I had fun with the sixaxis controls (most of the time). It needed more time in the oven though.

That said, I sincerely don't know what to make of Polygon... One day they write the most in-depth well written and researched articles around and the other total shit, pointless articles like this one.

Maybe the Editor is high all the time who knows anymore.

[babadivad]

It wasn't terrible.

[darthv72]

It was a better game when it received actual controller support instead of the motion controls at first.

As for Factor 5, they had a good thing going with Lucas and the star wars games. Their wii game Rogue Leaders could have been a hit so they screwed up there as well.

[Mithan]

When the game came out, everybody said it was crap. I picked it up for about $5 a year later and you know what? I really enjoyed most of the game. It has its issues and isn't perfect, but it isn't a bad game in any way, shape or form.

Like some of the other people said, it had a fair amount of potential that was never reached, but I put time into it, finished it and actually enjoyed the experience for the most part.

[nitus10]

Lair was one of the few early PS3 games that actually used the six-axis feature of the dual shock 3. The problem many players had was the fact that they were more used to using the analog sticks of previous controllers and consequently many players found that using the six-axis feature was not intuitive.

Even though the six-axis feature is available on the dual shock 3 and 4 very few games actually use it. Two games that do are Ratchet and Clank - Tools of Destruction (PS3) and Gravity Rush (PS4 and Vita). In fact, with Gravity Rush the players who do score exceptionally well in the challenges really do know how to marry up the analog sticks and the six-axis feature.

BTW. When using the PS4 you may be put into a menu that allows you the player to enter a name. You can select the six-axis feature and enter data without using the analog joysticks or the D-pad.

[TankCrossing]

This is actually a good article, well worth a read. They've interviewed several members of the team (with sometimes opposing viewpoints), and it offers some really interesting insight.

[Nitrowolf2]

I enjoyed it to a degree but only because I saw potential and I hope that one day so he decides to revisit.

The thing that killed it for a lot of people was the Sixaxis controls that was eventually patched long after to support normal controls

[The_KELRaTH]

I still have it (well the trade in value was crap and still have a PS3 for multimedia and games that didn't get to PS4).

[Cy]

Upvoting for the stuff about Polygon. If anyone wants to post an archive link to this article though I'm interested in reading it.

[Matt_Paprocki]

Or support sites willing to spend a year digging into a development process like this, of which there are few.

[Matt_Paprocki]

If you read the article and realized few, if any, sites are willing to spend a year digging into stories like this, maybe you'd change your mind.

[Cy]

Nah, Polygon's still a pile of shit and one article they spent time on won't erase years of SJW agenda pushing and outright lying to the community they're supposed to be representing.

[blackblades]

I thought it would of been like drakengard at 1st still a ok game to me. Wish devs could go back to certain games and fix the issues with them.

[rainslacker]

Lair wasn't a bad game when they released the update which remove the sixaxis requirement. I didn't care for it too much before that.

[TheColbertinator]

Those SIXAXIS controls were rotting piles

[Godmars290]

Rushed with a focus on motion controls, the latter of which only happened because Sony "borrowed" rumble and was too stupid to settle the lawsuit.

[dirkdady]

Sony acquired logitechs rumble patent which apparently infringed on immersion's patent so Sony essentially got shafted by Logitech.

[nitus10]

You could look at Immersion's patent which is really a rehash of original haptic feedback which from a patent perspective goes back many years (here is one from 1975 - https://www.google.com/pate... ).

The Sony versus Immersion haptic lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... is quite fascinating with precedent being set by Microsoft (I wonder why?).

BTW. If you want to read a technical patent you do need a technical or engineering or scientific background however you also need to know "legalese" which to the scientific community is like a totally different language. The problem you have with "legalese" is the fact that it is possible to write a patent such that it covers just about anything instead of precisely covering what the patent is really meant to cover.

[playhouseent]

I enjoyed Liar, but sadly it left a lot to be desired. Especially at the time when game selection was very limited on the new $700 console.

[The_Sage]

$700?... I got my 60 gig on launch day for $599.

[playhouseent]

I'm from Canada, my friend. The land where we pay sometimes as much as 30% more for the same stuff.

[The_Sage]

That sucks. Why is that?.. Is it a tax thing?

[playhouseent]

Our currency is just worth less than USD. It fluctuates but typically it is around 70 cents for 1 us dollar.

[Daver]

At that time us money and can money was worth the same

[playhouseent]

well it was still $700 to buy a new ps3 on launch up here. I remember because at the time I had to sign up for a future shop credit card just to be able to afford it.

[Tross]

Yes, but prices were still higher here. Some BS about costs of shipping to Canada that no one bought but still had to deal with the effects of. Before the Canadian dollar crashed (due to our former PM investing too much in oil) things were starting to improve, but the whole reason why I have an Amazon.com account that I haven't used in a long time is that around that time it was still often cheaper to buy stuff from the US site even with shipping costs. It helped that our dollar reached upwards of $1.02 US.

Now with the exchange rate what it is, I just stick to the Canadian site. Canadian prices have gone up since the dollar dropped, but at least the disparity in pricing makes sense now. I do miss when we were close to parity though. I guess we'll just have to hold out for another oil boom as even our new PM hasn't been able to adequately diversify Canada's investment portfolio. Actually, our new PM is terrible with money so maybe that's the problem.

[The_Sage]

I see. I thought you meant it was 700 USD.

[The_KELRaTH]

Played Warhawk to death back then, surprising thing is there are still active games running today

[playhouseent]

Woowww LOVED Warhawk. Been wanting a PS4 Warhawk reboot for ages now!

[madforaday]

A PS4 Warhawk would be awesome! They botched big time with Starhawk, cool concept but with random people in general it was hard to find a good game. It was either you were on the team who could make a maze to get to the flag. Or you were on the team that didn't do anything at all.

[The_Sage]

I really liked Lair.

[jokerisalive]

it was a good looking game graphically and the controls were a bit crude. I for one liked it and would love to see them go back and revive it. Reminds me of the Order a bit in that Sony makes some of the coolest best looking games that are unique and leave many of us dying for sequels.

[madforaday]

If they sold The Order for 30 bucks, it would have sold much better because the main black lash of the game was that there wasn't much content and they were right. For 60 bucks you only got an 8 hour SP game with no reason to go back. The story is what sold me, they left that game open so badly! The ending made it seem it could go into an open world stealth game. Or just a stealth game in general, that would be soo cool. So much story to tell in that game!

[Kratos_Kart2007]

this article should be dated for 2008.... 10 years ago....Running out of ideas?

[Matt_Paprocki]

It takes time for NDAs to expire so devs can speak freely, then it took another year to get all of the research, interviews, and edits finished.

[Father__Merrin]

Still rocking my copy. Booting it up it's extremely difficult to play if controls were better it might have been ok.

[The_Sage]

They did add a patch for analog controls.

[Akarogg]

They should make a Switch version

[chris235]

they just forgot to implement an engaging game with their flight simulator.

[Nodoze]

Rogue Squadron is dearly dearly missed.

[Dlaw76]

They should've stuck with Nintendo they had something going over there the grass is not always greener on the other side

[Skankinruby]

Once they fixed the sixaxis controls this game was decent, very generic but still a fun time in a call of duty sort of way

[BLKxSEPTEMBER]

This game war horrible. The motion controls ruined it and even when they patched in standard controls the game was still a joke.

[Einhander1971]

The idea was amazing the graphics superb, the whole execution not good😒They should do this again with real tight controls, and better level design.

[fluxmulder]

dummy text add new medium dragon txt here.

[The_KELRaTH]

"You should never believe the hype from the hardware manufacturers. Very big mistake,” says Eggebrecht

So true :)

[Shinkus]

The ass controls, everything else was great

[sprinterboy]

Controls for me

[solideagle]

I think it was a very good read.

[il-JumperMT]

controls. next time give ability to play without crap axis from launch

[Tross]

I enjoyed Lair despite the learning curve (it took a while to figure out how to get the dragon to do what I wanted). The ending is also pretty anti-climactic. An easy way to take out a final boss: fly by and destroy the tower she's in. However, there were moments in the middle of the game where I genuinely had a good time. I pretty much knew what I was getting into with the game before buying it though, and at the time it was one of the best looking games to get for my then shiny new PS3 to play in HD, so I mostly got it for that reason.

[P_Bomb]

Lair? What year am I living in?

[ZombieKiller]

Lair?! Does anyone even play this anymore? This was a PS3 launch title, a bit late there.

[Matt_Paprocki]

It missed the launch because of the issues brought up by the devs in the article.

[metalgod88]

Why are you guys bringing up a game that's like 8 years old? ...Move on man.

[DOOMZ]

Motion controls, thats what!

[Foxhound922]

I had a lot fun with the game! Using the six axis to control your Dragon was difficult but ultimately, once you got the hang of its nuances, it was fun. At the time, motion controls were bleeding edge tech and was refreshing. After the novelty of that faded, it was mostly a lackluster game but wasn't THAT bad. Funny how Polygon(MS Puppet) digs up a decade old Sony game, only to slam it. Typical