Trivia / Firefall

• Creator Killer:
  • Following his ouster from Red 5 Studio, Mark Kern's creative output has effectively screeched to a halt. While Kern has since announced and begun development on EM-8ER, a planned Spiritual Successor to Firefall, it has languished in Development Hell.
  • Firefall's Troubled Production and commercial failure resulted in Red 5 Studio shuttering in 2016, with the game's servers following suit the next year, having developed only one game.
• Dummied Out: A startling amount of content was outright removed rather than retooled, especially by the 1.6 update in January of 2016. Several abilities, the secondary fire modes of the signature frame weapons, several story quests and related Non Player Characters such as the Devilhawks team (the only evidence of their former presence was a unique Assault plasma gun named after them), entire areas of play and even an advanced dreadnought battleframe, the Arsenal, were removed. Those who owned an Arsenal frame were provided with a compensation package that included an array of goodies, including a reusable item to summon a 5-seat truck. Devil's Tusk, an endgame area set in a volcanic region of Hawaii, was set to return in Update 1.7., which failed to materialize before the shutdown.
• Executive Meddling:
  • Firefall suffered a high degree of this over its long and troubled history, including the removal of Red 5 Studio's lead, Mark Kern in 2013, and shady dealings on the part of its Chinese backers, The9, including trading half its stake in Red 5 for stake in a cashmere clothing manufacturer in 2016, as detailed here.
  • Rumors persist that the entirety of Red 5's original staff were eventually removed. There's also fact that discussion of The9 or Kern's new game, EM-8ER, would get you banned from Firefall's forums.
  • On the other hand, many complaints were made about Kern. He was said to be a Mean Boss, and infamously funneled a lot of the game's funding into extravagant promotional material, including a custom tour bus that wasn't finished in time for any convention appearances, that Kern himself later admitted was dumb.
• One-Book Author: Firefall would be the only video game developed by Red 5 Studio before the company's closure in 2016.
• What Could Have Been: This article written by Mark Kern describes just part of the bizarre evolutionary process that lead to Firefall's eventual status as World of Warcraft with guns.