WeFly (lost build of cancelled Wii open-world flight simulation game; 2007-2008)

The title screen as it appears from a unreleased gameplay trailer.

Status: Lost

WeFly was a cancelled open-world flight simulation game created by Factor 5 for the Wii. The game was Factor 5's take for a Pilotwings game on the Wii,^[1] being more lighthearted than what they first planned for the GameCube.^[2] The game was developed from 2007-2008 before being cancelled after the company shut down due to lawsuits, financial problems, and workers not being paid.

Development

After Factor 5's collaboration with Sony ended, they jumped into Wii development in 2007. Nintendo, who had a unique relationship with them and remained friendly was pleased for them to jump back on board. Factor 5 began putting together many pitches of Nintendo properties like Kid Icarus as potential Wii exclusive, one of these was WeFly, a revised spin on their planned Pilotwings game for the GameCube. Instead of it being dark, it was more lighthearted for the Wii's audience, mostly reminiscent of the Wii Sports airplane demo that was shown in E3 2006. Factor 5 was also in talks with Nintendo for a licensed glasses accessory that would be able to track head movement, inspired by a experiment by computer scientist, Johnny Chumlee.^[2]^[3] The pitch was turned down in mid-2008, it's mostly theorized that it was turned down because of the island fly minigame in Wii Sports Resort, being mostly inspired by Pilotwings.

Regardless of this, Factor 5 still developed the game, wanting it to become a original IP. The game went under several names, first being called by its codename, Sky, before being called Wii Flight, and then WiiFly. However, the game went into legal issues as the title would infringe the "Wii" trademark, being altered to WeFly. Despite Nintendo not signing on the pitch, they were still involved as they allowed Factor 5 to incorporate Miis, worked with them on using data from the Wii Forecast Channel, and were apparently still on board to produce the head tracking glasses.^[3]

Gameplay

The game was planned to be a realistic open-world title where the player can fly around famous cities across the globe. Each city has various unique objective you can do, some being the traditional Pilotwings missions. Other missions, however, were new ideas Factor 5 made, one where you can shoot at fireworks in the sky to create a fireworks display. Additionally, WeFly added a photo mode where you can pause and rotate the camera to take pictures of your flights and tap into the weather channel for the time and weather of each city.^[3] The lineup was playable vehicles varied featuring the traditional airplanes and jetpacks to hot-air balloon and a magic carpet. The game was also planned to let players to go onto the moon and explore sights as a human colony with space aircrafts like a lunar spacecraft and a UFO.

Cancellation

Toward the end of 2008, Factor 5 was forced to close down after Brash Entertainment and Green Screen Interactive (their publishers for their projects, including WeFly) had to close down after financial issues, leading Factor 5 into financial crisis and not paying their employees for two months.^[4] Some of Factor 5's projects would briefly resume with another company, but WeFly was not among them.

Availability

No footage was never shown as the game was never announced until 2017 when Julian Eggebrecht, the founder of Factor 5, showed a unreleased gameplay trailer to Unseen64 and DidYouKnowGaming. As of today, no build has been dumped online.