Sam & Max Freelance Police

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A screenshot from the E3 trailer of Sam & Max Freelance Police.

Sam & Max Freelance Police was a computer game announced by LucasArts, a sequel to the famed Sam & Max Hit the Road.

[edit] Cancellation

Although concept images, a promotional E3 teaser video, and screenshots were released, LucasArts announced the cancellation of the anticipated title on March 3, 2004, citing "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" in a short two-sentence press release. The announcement was made near the end of the game's development, just before advertisements and previews for the game were scheduled to appear in magazines. The abruptness of the cancellation shocked fans and incited numerous angry letters, online petitions and website articles directed at LucasArts.[1]

The cancellation caused a number of LucasArts employees involved with the Sam & Max sequel to leave and form Telltale Games, a smaller company dedicated to creating the adventure games that LucasArts, evidently, no longer wished to produce. Their first order of business was an attempt to acquire rights to complete the game, an action which rival publisher Bad Brain Entertainment had already begun. LucasArts eventually broke off negotiations with Bad Brain on March 2, 2005. Since then, all traces of Sam & Max have been wiped from the LucasArts website including the press releases issued regarding its announcement and cancellation, presumably because of the intense fan reaction. LucasArts' license with Steve Purcell expired in May 2005.

[edit] Rebirth

Main article: Sam & Max (computer game)

In September 2005, four months after LucasArts' license expired, Steve Purcell announced that he would be working with Telltale Games on a new and unrelated Sam and Max project. The game was to be released in an episodic nature, similar to Telltale's previous games, and commenced pre-production in February 2006. Plans call for an episode to be released every month for six months through GameTap and on TellTale's website. The first episode was released on October 17, 2006.