Trivia / Area 51 (FPS)

• Christmas Rushed: Blacksite had an extremely rushed development cycle due to Midway Games being in a very precarious financial situation, which explained why it launched in such a buggy state.
• Creator Backlash: Harvey Smith (who was the director of both Midway-era games) does not have kind things to say about Blacksite. In fact, him publicly speaking out against the game's rushed production cycle would lead to him leaving Midway Austin shortly after its release.
• Troubled Production: Blacksite suffered from a very rushed development cycle, due in part to Midway's insistence on having all of its future projects use the Unreal Engine 3, which was still experimental, and them making hail mary shots in the hopes that any of them would be successful. The situation had gotten bad to the point that Harvey Smith (who was working on his own game) had to be called in to intervene on the game's development. Needless to say, the game was released in a buggy state and to a poor critical and commercial performance. As Smith himself puts it:
  "That project was so fucked up. I wasn't particularly interested in the IP, and it took eight months to get one thing working. With a year to go, the game was disastrously off tails. It went straight from alpha to final."