Celeste developer cancels new game Earthblade
Earthblade, which was being created by Celeste developer Extremely OK Games, has now been cancelled. The studio provided an update on its official website today.
The decision to cancel Earthblade was made in December. A few things factored in here, including a split with Pedro Medeiros over “the IP rights of Celeste,” according to Extremely OK Games’ Maddy Thorson. While a resolution was met, Medeiros has moved on from the team and is hard at work on his game Neverway.
After this, it prompted the team “to take a serious look at whether fighting through to finish Earthblade was the right path forward.” Thorson explained that the game “was also not as far along as one would expect after such a protracted development process.”
Thorson went on to state the following:
But would it be worth the pain? Noel and I also began to reflect on how the game has felt for us to work on day-to-day, and realized that it has been a struggle for a long time. Sure, working on one project for so long is bound to become a slog, but this feels like a deeper problem. Celeste’s success applied pressure on us to deliver something bigger and better with Earthblade, and that pressure is a large part of why working on it has become so exhausting. Pedro isn’t to blame for this- in fact the split with him has given us the clarity to see that we have lost our way, and the opportunity to admit defeat. I feel many ways about it, but one big feeling is undoubtedly relief.
Because this is the internet, I want to be unequivocal here that the decision and responsibility for cancelling Earthblade rests entirely with me and Noel. If you were excited about Earthblade and angry about its cancelling, Pedro and the Neverway team aren’t the enemy and anyone who treats them as such isn’t welcome in any EXOK community.
Extremely OK Games will now “refocus ourselves back to smaller-scale projects.” The team is “prototyping again and exploring at our own pace, and trying to rediscover game development in a manner closer to how we approached it at Celeste’s or TowerFall’s inception.”
Thanks to Extremely OK Games for today’s news. For those interested in Earthblade, check out our previous report here.
