After the runaway success of Celeste, fans had high hopes for the company’s new game Earthblade. Unfortunately, that game won’t be coming out anymore, as devs Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry have announced its cancelation. This is disappointing in so many levels, as a metroidvania game from the studio sounded perfect.
On the Extremely Okay Games website, it was announced that the highly-anticipated indie game was canceled as part of a “final update” blog. The blog states that this metroidvania was officially canned sometime in December. It seems that this was caused by a dispute about the rights to Celeste with founding member Pedro Medeiros.
Here is the official statement on Earthblade’s cancellation:
“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...We're 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."
The news is pretty disappointing since Earthblade had a ton of potential. Ever since it was first shown off during The Game Awards, fans everywhere were hoping to get their hands on it. Add the overall success of Celeste and it’s easy to see why everyone is disappointed by this major announcement.
In other cancellation-related news, EA recently stopped their Origin launcher, reverting back to their own app. SEGA is also doing something less risky by announcing a membership that gives players cosmetics for logging into their service.