Earlier this summer, a trailer for Mass Effect: Paragon Lost, an animated Mass Effect 3 prequel, was released. As previously posted, Paragon Lost is a collaboration between BioWare and Production I.G., the famed Japanese anime house behind Ghost in the Shell and the animated scenes in Kill Bill.
*Is* a collaboration? Speculation out of Japan makes it seem that "was" would be more appropriate. But let's not jump to conclusions just yet!
Yesterday, reports surfaced that IG Port, Production I.G's parent company, cancelled a work contract, because its client defaulted on payment—you know, didn't pay.
According to ANN, Production I.G delivered the first chunk of work to its client; however, after the client failed to follow through with payment, it asked to have the work returned. Production I.G poured nearly US$2 million into the project, and the studio is now trying to figure out what this means for its profitability.
Today, Japanese sites are pointing out that the websites for Mass Effect: Paragon Lost are throwing up 404 messages—from the Japanese distributor movie site to even MassEffectParagonLost.com.
Update 1: The websites are apparently up outside of Japan, so this definitely could be a server issue.
This might be simply a website or server issue and the Mass Effect anime collaboration could still be on. There are a few reasons to believe that—such as that within the last 24 hours, the anime's official Twitter sent out an update.
What's more, the website for the Dragon Age anime is also offline—implying that it could be some sort of server issue in Japan. Like Mass Effect, Dragon Age is an EA property the company hoped to turn into anime franchise. But unlike Mass Effect, Production I.G did not work on the anime, which was released this past February.
Kotaku is following up with EA and will update this post should the company reply.
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost is (was?) slated for this fall.
Production I.Gにお金を振り込まなかった発注元は「EA」！？アニメ版『マスエフェクト』の海外サイトが無くなってるｗｗｗｗ [はちま起稿]
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