It’s been announced that Factor 5 is officially no more. The California based development studio birthed the once legendary Turrican series, and was responsible for some of the greatest titles on the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo Gamecube as “2nd party” developers – most notably Rogue Squadron and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine on the N64, and the Rogue Squadron sequels on the Gamecube. They gained a reputation for technical skills with seemingly confining hardware, and are well-known in gaming cicrles for their audio compression wizardry. Most recently, Factor 5 were responsible for the high profile dud, Lair, for the PS3.

They were working on at least two un-announced titles, one for Brash Games – who went kaput in 2008 – often rumored to be Brash’s Superman title, and an unnamed Nintendo Wii project, rumored to be Kid Icarus.

They are survived by their German parent company. Private services will be held in my basement as i play Indiana Jones Greatest Adventures on the SNES and attempt to finish Lair for the 40th time.

The following statement was posted on Factor 5′s parent company’s website:

“We are sorry to announce the closure of the San Rafael-based Factor 5, Inc. studio, but the obstacles created by the sudden bankruptcy of Brash Entertainment for the continuation of operations have turned out too great to overcome in the current economic climate,”

“Factor 5 GmbH, which has been creating games since 1988 with its headquarters in Cologne, Germany, is entirely unrelated to Factor 5, Inc. and the circumstances surrounding Factor 5 Inc.’s recent challenges. Although we are saddened by Factor 5 Inc.’s situations, our corporation will remain unaffected by these developments and has has partnered with both old and new friends in the industry who will reveal our upcoming projects over the next months.”