There is now a Jane's Attack Squadron Petition online, created in reaction to the understanding that Electronic Arts is in the process of deciding whether or not to fund continued development of Jane's Attack Squadron, the ambitious WWII flying combat game that could be one of the casualties of the closing of Looking Glass Studios (story and story). Here is a plea from Rich "Zdim" Carlson (a former member of Looking Glass himself) on the subject:

Thief lead designer Tim Stellmach, from yesterday's GameSpy interview:

Looking Glass was stuck in a position of trying to run a couple of projects that weren't bringing in much money up front. Jane's Attack Squadron was slipping its schedule significantly due (at least in part) to a major redesign of the game partway through, at the insistence of the publisher. We also had an action/espionage title in early development, originally contracted out to Irrational Games. When they pulled out of the project, so did its publisher (Microsoft), along with a lot of expected advances.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Looking Glass's JAS, Jane's Attack Squadron (formerly FLIGHT COMBAT), is not quite dead!

As we speak, 20 or so Looking Glass employees, Con Hantzopoulos and his extraordinary flight sim team, are waiting vigil until Tuesday when EA will announce whether they plan to take JAS to its June release or not.

For those of you who haven't heard about it, JAS is a revolutionary single AND multiplayer 3D WW2 action-oriented air combat game, with ALL of the trimmings.

As if the multiplayer component (solo fighters and team bombers, etc.) wasn't enough, the game would ship with its excellent and very easy to use game/mission/terrain editor. Also, JAS is very extensible with regards to user-created aircraft and coolstuff like that.

I have seen this game in production, and it is a marvel of gameplay, physics, art and technology.

So, and I'm going to stick my neck out a little bit here, if you truly want to help LGS out, write EA and tell them to SAVE JAS/FLIGHT COMBAT!!!

With a little oomph, and luck, we all may be able to play and enjoy one more game infused with that special LGS magic this summer!