Lunar 3? - May 1998 - E3 Interview with Victor Ireland, by Webber and Rudo

At the 1998 E3(around early May of 1998), Webber and Rudo of the original LunarNET, interviewed Victor Ireland (click for interview). Some little bits of news about Lunar 3 were shed, but still not much. Some relevant parts of the interview are below:

Webber: Lunar 3, have you heard anything?
Vic: It's in production right now. It's actually the early stages of production, design, story, that kind of stuff. It really just started maybe three months ago.

Webber: Is it going to be on Dreamcast?
Vic: All I can say is that in the US we have the Lunar trademark, if we don't do it nobody can. If they try to do it they can't call it Lunar, and we are not publishing for Dreamcast. So thats the long round-a-bout, so it doesn't really matter what system it's originally published on, it will be on whatever system we are publishing on here. That is about as specific as I can get. Unless Bernie is gone Dreamcast is a serious no for us.
[...]
Vic: It's very unlikely Lunar will be seen on Dreamcast from anybody(In the US), because if anybody else tried to do it they couldn't call it Lunar. And its very unlikely GameArts would license it to them anyway because that would affect their relationship with us.

Webber: It's a couple years away anyways.
Vic: It's a least two years. It might be three. Grandia took four years.

Webber: By that time Sony's new system will be right around the corner.
Vic: It's a pretty good bet.

One year later, at the 1999 E3 (around May 1999), Rudo interviewed Victor Ireland again, where some small but interesting tidbits about the game follow:

Rudo: Okay, what about Lunar 3?
Vic: It's in planning. That's basically all I can say.

Rudo: Any word on the system it's going to appear on?
Vic: Let me put it this way, for the US, it's going to be Playstation 2, absolutely.

Rudo: What about in Japan?
Vic: The system hasn't been decided yet but it's unlikely that it will be on Dreamcast in Japan and it's certain that it won't be on Dreamcast in the US.

Rudo: But isn't GameArts really close to Sega?
Vic: Yeah, but it's mostly ESP who controls all of that. The thing is that the 3 most important people in the making of the Lunar games aren't actually GameArts employees. Kubooka (the art and character designer), Iwadare (the music composer) and Shigema (Scenario) all worked on the Lunar games but they aren't part of GameArts. All GameArts did was do the programming for the games and it's possible that for Lunar 3, the programming end will be handled by another developer (Kadokawa Shoten, etc.) but the game will still include the work of Kubooka, Iwadare and Shigema. The GameArts programmers are mostly the ones who are big Sega fans.
[...]
Vic: I'll say one thing about Lunar 3. It's coming sooner than people expect but not in the manner that people think.

Rudo: Ah! An enigma. I guess we'll have to figure that one out.
Vic: Yep, that's all I can say about it.

[Back to the LUNAR 3 main page]