Thread:SecondOpinion/@comment-5688420-20181005150605/@comment-5688420-20181012140940

Project Daedalus originally started out as W.I.N.G.S.: The Second Strike, which was originally announced in E3 2006 and was slated for a 2007 release. Development for The Second Strike came to a sudden halt in the first few months of 2007 after arguments with series director Koji Terada (whose cinematic game direction and expertise in storytelling rivals that of Hideo Kojima; he actually started out as a member of KJP amlnd was even one of the developers of Snatcher) and the rest of ACS management led to Terada, as well as his production studio Titan Studio, to leave ACS.

During the interim between 2007 and 2011, Titan Studio worked on a spiritual successor to W.I.N.G.S. called Only Sky, which was to continue the signature rich storytelling and dark, gritty plot of their "magnum opus" W.I.N.G.S.: Aerial Combat Reinvented (2004). However, the project was passed on between developers. It was originally gonna be published by Capcom, but was latter dropped and picked up by Sega, who then dropped it again, and then was picked up by Hudson Soft just in time for its demise and eventual merging with Konami. Without a publisher to his game, Terada was forced to cancel Only Sky.

However, in late 2011, after years of animosity, Koji Terada and ACS finally buried the hatchet, leading to Terada and Titan Studio's return with the company. Terada's first action upon rejoining the company was to start work with W.I.N.G.S.: Project Daedalus. Using elements from both The Second Strike and Only Sky, Titan Studio worked on the title for three more years until it was finally released in 2014, to massive critical acclaim.