It is a period of civil war.
The Rebel Alliance is
preparing a major attack
against the evil Empire.
Launching from a hidden
base on the fourth moon of
Yavin, the Alliance forces
hope to destroy the Death
Star, an armored space
station with enough power
to decimate an entire planet.
LUKE SKYWALKER and
WEDGE ANTILLES, two
young Rebel recruits, have
joined the Alliance in a
brave attempt to restore
freedom in the galaxy....
Rogue Leader expanded on the original game with improved graphics and a new tactics menu that allows the player to form up their squadron or set a target for their squadron such as laser turrets or enemy TIE Fighters. The game also expanded on the unlockable levels of the original—Beggar's Canyon is included in the tutorial, the opening level Battle of Yavin was included in both games (Rogue Squadron called the level Death Star Trench Run), and Battle of Hoth was made more authentic with the GameCube's advanced power. The other major battle in the original movie trilogy, The Battle of Endor, was arguably the biggest and most challenging scenario in the entire game.
The Rebellion grew following this victory, as did Imperial retaliation. Red Squadron escorted a convoy from Yavin 4 to Hoth. After Skywalker is shot down during the Battle of Hoth, command switched to Wedge Antilles. After the Battle of Hoth, Antilles took part in an investigation team in The Maw, to scout out an Imperialasteroid base; where he and the rest of Rogue Squadron freed prisoners. Bothan spies beamed the plans and the location of the Death Star II to the corvetteRazor, which was captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer. The Rogues disabled the Star Destroyer and sent it crashing into the planet where the Rogues provided support to a commando team moving into the burning hull of the cruiser after its destruction to retrieve the data.
As the Rebellion prepared for its operation against the Death Star II, Antilles led a strike team to capturetibanna gas for the Rebel fleet at Bespin, then moved to the climatic Battle of Endor.
When Factor 5 received early GameCube prototype hardware in the mid-2000, the development team then working on Star Wars: Battle for Naboo decided they next wanted to create a direct sequel to Factor 5's most successful game to date—Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. With LucasArts' approval, the team immediately began developing a tech demo to exhibit at Space World, a Nintendo-hosted trade show. In 19 days, Factor 5 produced an introductory cutscene that emulated a scene from Star Wars and a playable demo, which then premiered alongside Nintendo's GameCube hardware at the show. According to GameSpot, the cutscene "wowed audiences",[1] and IGN described the demo as "drop-dead gorgeous".
As with Rogue Squadron and Battle for Naboo, Rogue Leader was again co-developed by Factor 5 and LucasArts, however the bulk of the game's development was done by Factor 5. Unlike past co-development efforts, the bulk of the level design, which was traditionally handled by LucasArts, was created by Factor 5 in addition to the game's engineering and programming. Factor 5's in-house development team consisted of 25 members plus two freelance employees.[2] One level designer as well as the game's lead artist were employed by LucasArts. Development of the game's art started that same year. In anticipation of the project, modelers immediately began building high-polygon models of the playable craft using Maya and in-house tools, and usable art was pulled from the archives. In late December, 2000, mission designers met with director Julian Eggebrecht and producer Brett Tosti to start planning the game engine. The team eventually completed Battle for Naboo, and full-time development of Rogue Leader began in February 2001.
Draw distance, much improved over the first Rogue Squadron and Battle for Naboo, was drawn out as far as possible. A small amount of haze was deliberately added to create a sense of distance, but not to actually hide the drawing. The game also has three levels of detail; The closer the player comes to objects, the more detailed they become. By utilizing the GameCube's Graphics processing unit's TEV pipeline, Factor 5 was able to create the shader needed to produce the visual effect employed by the game's targeting computer. The developers tried to make the game as close to the movies as possible, studying Industrial Light & Magic's special effects, using some of the same sound effects, music and voice acting from the films. The original actor, Denis Lawson, was also hired to record new lines for Wedge Antilles.
Rogue Leader was the 7th-best-selling video game on the Nintendo Gamecube in November 2001, the title's debut month. These sale figures made the game the best-selling third-party and second-best-selling overall GameCube game during the console's launch. LucasArts stated that the title had sold faster than any of its previously published games at the time. When both the game and console were launched in the United Kingdom over six months later, the title entered the charts at number one, making it the first ever third-party game to hit the top spot during a console's launch. In May 2003, Nintendo added Rogue Leader to its best-selling Player's Choice collection. Rogue Leader sold over 873,000 copies in the United States[4], and over 100,000 in the UK.