Developer's resume states that sequel to BioWare's Eastern-themed RPG was in the works; developer mum on the matter.
Source: See below.
What we heard: Though not as big a hit as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire was one of BioWare's premiere role-playing games of the last generation. Released in 2005 on the original Xbox and then in 2007 for the PC, the martial-arts-heavy, Eastern-themed title established a sizeable following on the back of solid reviews.
So strong was Jade Empire's reception that in November 2005, BioWare cofounder and then-joint-CEO Ray Muzkya revealed that his company was working on a sequel. "BioWare definitely plans to continue the Jade Empire franchise," he declared. "The Jade team did a great job with the first game in that series; we have great teams working on all of our games here. We've also said in the past that we're working on not just one, but two Xbox 360 titles. Enough said."
In October 2009, though, BioWare was more circumspect on the project, with Dragon Age lead designer Mike Laidlaw casting doubt on whether a follow-up was in active development. "We will certainly announce it if it's going to be coming out," he said. "At this point, Jade Empire is a staff favorite, and a lot of us love it, so we'd love to revisit it at some point. But right now, we are very focused on Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2."
This week comes with an indicator that Jade Empire 2 was indeed in active development--and that it will likely never see the light of day. On his LinkedIn profile, a former senior designer lists "Jade Empire 2 (360/PS3/PC)" amongst the unreleased projects he has worked on. In this case, "unreleased" appears to mean canceled, since other projects he lists in that category include the confirmed-dead Gun 2 and True Crime 3, which he worked on while at Activision.
The official story: "It's EA's policy not to comment on rumors or speculation."--EA BioWare rep.
Bogus or not bogus?: Looking not bogus. Jade Empire certainly had potential--enough potential for BioWare sign a one-time deal with 2K Games just to get the title on the PC. (The original was published by Microsoft Game Studios.) However, following BioWare's purchase by Electronic Arts in 2007, it appears that the sequel didn't make the cut when compared to the Canadian studio's other hot properties.
Jade Empire is the only great Chinese based oriental RPG. I love that the developers took so many steps to leave everything Japanese out of it, which was, and still is, new. It had great game play and is still, to this day, a wonderful and innovative game. Yes, lets have a Jade Empire 2!
I think we, the RPG lovers, are in a tremendous majority about this: Jade Empire was, is, and ever will be a very beautiful game. The sequel is absolutely necessary! It may as well hit another Game Of The Year. Bioware, you have all our support for making Jade Empire 2!
Damn, that is such a shame if true. I really liked the first one and was hoping for a sequel!
Jade Empire was a fantastic game. Hopefully it is still in development and just been put on hold due to ME3 and SW:TOR being in development.
PLEASE please please Bioware ... make the GIRLS BEAUTIFUL .... Jade empire Girls was really really awful ... hire Asian character designer like Juno Jeong of Hyung Tae Kim if needed ...
What an enormous kick in the teeth. I loved Jade Empire. It was a beautiful game with great writing, characters and a solid combat system. It was one of the very few games I wanted to find out what were the alternate endings.
What a miscarriage of justice, that this game was aborted so soon. A kick in the stomach to all RPG fans...
Stillborn 1. dead when born. 2. ineffectual from the beginning; abortive; fruitless: a stillborn plan of escape. STFU it means more than one thing, quit being so sensitive.
GS have used the term stillborn before, and the same debate ensued as to whether its appropriate or not. It doesnt bother me, but im sure there are those that have known someone that has lost a child. But then again where do you draw the line? Duke Nukem offends people that have suffered Nuclear disasters/bombs etc etc.
@thorsen-ink - yes, but stillborn as a word is specific to an unborn child dying in the womb. solidmatt1's suggestion of aborted is better, since OK, we have abortions, but abort as a word in and of itself means to stop something before it's finished and can be used to describe more than just terminating a pregnancy. Whichever way you defend it, stillborn used to describe a game that isn't completed is just distasteful - and I think you'll see from what most people have thumbed up that they agree.
NOOOO!!! This can't be happening! I really hope Bioware do make this game. I prefered Jade Empire to KOTOR.
Jade Empire was great. I miss the old Bioware. They use to have amazing stories in their games.
At all the people who are getting mad because others are getting mad at the use of the word stop being idealists. Sure you have your argument that we need to not be so sensitive and understand that words have multiple meanings but in the real world most words are used for one meaning. They all have their CURRENT connotations and THOSE are the ones that apply. lol not the whole "omg it means something else too" BS that only comes across as "Im justifying my desire to do and say whatever I want" we all know free speech is BS. Sure its IDEAL that people dont care and arent as sensitive but what does that mean? No one should care about anyone or anything anymore? lol, please, thats something a rebelling high school student would say.
Hmm... seems like crap, but technically we don't know for sure. Reason being, Gun 2 and True Crime 3 being games he worked on but never released, all it means is the weren't released. Jade Empire 2 IS being worked on, and has not been released yet, so it makes sense to me that he would put it under that category.
@kytomasi Let's just hope Bioware throws more RPG into Mass Effect 3 but keeps the combat system from ME2. I love both Mass Effect games but I love the role playing of the first game and the combat of the second game.
Wow, I always thought of Jade Empire as one of Bioware's failures. I think that game hit the bargain bins only a month after it was released.
@solidmatt1 @ravenhost91 Stillborn has been a term of speech for as long as I've been writing, which is nearly 20 years.
Jade Empire is easily one of my favorite games of all time. It seems like it would be a no-brainer to develop a second one. I hate when video game companies ignore incredibly solid video game designs and concepts. If Electronic Arts is behind the shelving of this project...they need to reconsider management.
"Aborted" would be a much more accurate word. Even if "stillborn" did make sense and wasn't offensive, you seemingly used the word incorrectly as a verb. So all in all it's probably the worst title Ive ever seen on gamespot....which is saying a lot.
@jmartin1016 zOMG I haven't seen so much trolling like your in a while , get back to your cave before we burn you. I never really played Jade Empire, but the comments below are encouriging me to do so , anything from bioware is great in my opinion ,they never disappoint , although i am a new fan , my first game was Mass Effect.
@Fandango_Letho: Jade Empire was indeed really short (it took me about 13-14 hours to beat, if I recall), but in my view it was still a phenomenally paced and made game.
Personally, and I really don't care if I'm alone on this or not, but Jade Empire is my favorite Bioware game. And one of the richest worlds they've created. The combat got a little stale after a while, but a sequel would have had so much room for improvement. This news makes me a little sad, and I hope development does resume eventually, but for now, all I can say is; at least I still have my L.E Jade Empire 1.
My own thoughts on this: I will simply say, "I do not think it means what you think it means" and leave it at that. I truly miss Jade Empire. I'm one of those crazy people who loved Jade Empire's simplistic, straightforward mechanics just like I loved KotOR's/Mass Effect's mechanics and Mass Effect 2's less-"simplified"-than-you-think mechanics alike. I loved the setting -- it wasn't standard fantasy, it wasn't standard sci-fi, and (for those of you who've played a lot of Oriental fantasy games, such as free-to-play MMOs and what have you) it wasn't quite standard Oriental fantasy. In some ways it seemed to glean material from all of these different settings to create a truly interesting take on what might otherwise have been a simplistic student-versus-master-versus-empire story. JADE GOLEM!
the game is imo Bioware's weakest title, and honestly i don't think the franchise is sorely missed.
@jmartin1016: If I may, I am curious as to why you feel so negatively about Bioware as a company and why you "pretty much hate every game they have ever made." And what was different about Dragon Age that you enjoyed more than the other games?
....wait wait wait...Jade Empire 2 not coming out isn't the greatest news in the world. However, ANOTHER TRUE CRIME GAME? WHY?! NEVER HAVE I PLAYED A WORSE SERIES!
Yeey I hope they implement the path of the open fist so I can open up skulls with my fist :D
@wbezuidenhout It's not the PC crowd who's offended by the use of the term 'Stillborn' here. I'm the furthest thing from PC and it offends me.
This was the first Bioware game that I was convinced by reviews to buy. It wasn't the last, but I pretty much hate every game they have ever made. Except Dragon Age, which is tolerable. IMO they suck, and I hope EA leaves them in ruin. :)
Oh, and heres my take on the stillborn thing. While not offended, i do think the word is used incorrectly. when a child is stillborn, that means it was brought to term, then died shortly before or during birth. So, being that jade empire 2 was never finished, it cant have been stillborn but rather that other thing that makes people even more upset. it would have needed to like, been finished, and shipped, and then just when its about to make to retailers, the trucks get told to turn around and come back for it to be stillborn.
Meh, Jade Empire was their worst game. not too bummed out about this. But it seems that every game that guy worked on got canceled, talk about bad luck.
Something just doesn't sit well with me about this. Bioware is known to have an unannounced project still in the works and now this senior designer doesn't have Jade Empire 2 anywhere on his page after this article. Why take it off if it were canceled? Gun 2 as far as I know was never officially announced and he's got that listed. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid about all this and being way too hopeful for a Jade Empire 2.
A shame...Jade Empire was a good game. I liked the whole chinese mythology themed world, it was fresher than something like dragon age to me even, I've seen way more lord of the rings/midevil europe themed settings than almost any other historical myth based worlds out there...It'd be cool if they could come up with another or similar setting like that...African, Japanese, Indian, Native American, Greek, Roman, Egyptian...even Chinese again. Most of these cultures have enough ancient myths to build a setting from which to tell a amazing story...all it takes is the right artistry to visualize it.
After DA:O, DA2 & ME2 I'm very concerned that Bioware has lost it's way on game play and I'm seeing more and more comments that make me think I'm not the only one.
jade empire series gone because EA Games pull the plug on it was looking forward to damm you EA Games just like Activevision shame both of you
BioWare joint CEO Ray Muzyka acknowledges follow-up to martial arts role-playing game in interview, strongly hints that it will be on Xbox 360.
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