A look at WeFly: The Wii Pilotwings game that never came to be

Factor 5 founder Julian Eggebrecht has shared never-before-seen footage of the canceled Wii Pilotwings game, WeFly. Thanks to a video from Unseen64 and Did You Know Gaming, the footage comes neatly packaged with the troubled tale of the ill-fated game, from first pitch to cancellation.

Factor 5 first started putting together the pitch for the Pilotwings Wii game in 2007. Nintendo would eventually turn down the pitch, partially due to a Pilotwings-inspired mode in Wii Sports Resort, but that wasn’t the end for a Wii version Pilotwings. The developer eventually connected with the publisher Green Screen Interactive and started development on the game. 

The game itself was planned to be a realistic, open-world title that let players fly around to a number of famous cities across the globe. Additionally, the game would tap into the Wii’s weather channel to simulate the weather and time-of-day at each location at any given time. In addition to the typical Pilotwings missions, WeFly also included a photo mode that let players pause and rotate the camera for mid-air flights. 

One especially interesting part of the game was the peripheral Factor 5 was working on with Nintendo that would’ve allowed Wii players to track their head movement while playing the game. More details on that neat little piece of hardware and footage of the game itself can be found in the video just above.