Fully Charged: Failed Zano drone Kickstarter exposed, and meet Far Cry Primal’s hero
Load up on the morning's top tech news tidbits
Failed drone Kickstarter exposed
As promised, freelance writer Mark Harris – who was hired by Kickstarter, and has written for Stuff in the past – delivered his report of what exactly went wrong with the failed Zano drone crowdfunding campaign, which raised £2.3 million and mailed out only four drones to backers before its maker folded. In short: well, a whole lot of things went wrong.
And Harris spares no detail in his 13,000 word piece posted at Medium, which Kickstarter funded but wasn’t allowed to alter before publishing. We encourage you to read it all, if you have the time; but the short version seems to be that maker Torquing couldn’t meet its own ambitions and rushed out an inadequate version, and significant losses forced the company to liquidate before fulfilling nearly all of the backer orders. It’s another cautionary tale about crowdfunding and believing the hype when a project seems too good to be true.
Meet Far Cry Primal’s hero
After four increasingly great modern entries, Ubisoft’s wild, open-world Far Cry franchise is digging back into the Stone Age for next month’s Far Cry Primal. Haven’t been following the latest on this prehistoric twist? Well, we have a hands-on preview to help you get caught up, but this brand new trailer is also worth a look.
It introduces Takkar, the new lead, who must protect his tribe amidst the usual series blend of crazy humans and intense wildlife. Far Cry Primal hits Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on 23 February worldwide, with the PC version following soon thereafter on 1 March.
[Source: YouTube]
Read More › Far Cry Primal hands-on review
Star Wars Battlefront III build leaks
When EA’s Star Wars Battlefront reboot released in November, it arrived 10 years after the previous entry – but we almost saw a third entry in the earlier Battlefront series. In fact, it was nearly complete in 2008, according to the makers at Free Radical, but LucasArts opted not to release it and the game never saw the light of day. Until now, it seems.
VentureBeat reports that a playable Xbox 360 build of the cancelled Star Wars Battlefront III is circulating the web, and that anyone with a modded or debug (development kit) console can run it and explore a solidly functional game. You surely won’t be able to get online with the multiplayer-centric affair, but the game really does seem to be far along based on the videos that have surfaced so far. It’s an unexpected relic, and a welcome curiosity to explore now that Star Wars fever is so high.
[Source: VentureBeat]
New Suicide Squad trailer
Lastly, if you didn’t see it floating around social media yesterday, here’s the first official trailer for DC’s Suicide Squad, out this August. Last year’s Comic-Con teaser, which the studio only widely released after berating fans for wanting to watch a leaked version, was pretty flat and overdramatic – but this one seems to better convey the crazed, chaotic tone we expect. And now we’re a lot more excited about it.
[Source: YouTube]
Read More › The 10 movies we’re most excited about this year
Andrew Hayward
Freelance Writer 
