The Celeste developer Extremely OK Games has made the “difficult decision” to cancel the “2D explor-action” game Earthblade.
This new project was originally revealed in 2021 and now in a blog update it’s been revealed the new game was cancelled “late last month”. This follows a conflict within the team “centered around a disagreement about the IP rights of Celeste”.
Although this matter was resolved, both parties agreed to go their “separate ways” – with founding member Pedro Medeiros moving to his own project Neverway. Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry insist “Pedro isn’t to blame” here while citing the “pressure” of development and Earthblade’s “protracted development process”. The plan now is to refocus on smaller projects.
“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.”
You can get the full rundown about the cancellation of Earthblade over on the developer’s official website. We’ve also reached out to the development team about this news, so if we get any updates or hear any news about future projects for Nintendo platforms, we’ll let you know.