Celeste and Towerfall studio Extraordinarily OK Video games has revealed that its formidable Metroidvania platformer Earthblade has been canceled owing to an inner studio dispute.
In a submit on the official EXOK web site titled “Ultimate Earthblade Replace” (simply in case you were not completely positive the sport was completed), the studio describes the cancellation as “an enormous, heartbreaking, and but relieving failure”. EXOK head Maddy Thorson says the choice to cancel was truly made in December.
In keeping with Thorson, a “fracture” started forming in 2024, together with her and coworker Noel Berry on one facet and artwork director Pedro Medeiros on one other. Particularly, the dispute revolved round “the IP rights of Celeste“, and it is a dispute Thorson says she “will not be detailing publicly”.
The dispute, which Thorson calls “a really tough and heartbreaking course of”, was ultimately resolved, however she and Berry ultimately agreed to go their separate methods with Medeiros, who initially introduced his departure from EXOK again in November.
Thorson says that the dispute with Medeiros induced her and Berry to check out Earthblade and ask themselves whether or not persevering with its growth could be “well worth the ache”. Collectively, they concluded that engaged on the sport had turn out to be “exhausting”, main them to “admit defeat”.
She additionally goes on to say that followers should not blame Medeiros, and that he and the crew on his recreation Neverway “aren’t the enemy”. Treating them as such will make you unwelcome “in any EXOK neighborhood”, she says.
If you happen to’re questioning precisely what Earthblade is (or was), it was an exploration-based motion platformer that might have supplied “seamless exploration, difficult fight, and numerous mysteries to choose aside”.
Initially revealed in 2021, EXOK introduced in early 2024 that Earthblade would not be popping out that 12 months. It’s totally probably the studio had already begun to grapple with the issues that might trigger the sport’s cancellation even then.
As for what’s subsequent for EXOK, Thorson says the aim now could be to “wipe the slate clear” and to “refocus…again to smaller-scale initiatives”. We’ll have to attend and see the place that goes in future.