Celeste Devs Cancel Earthblade

Earthblade Cancellation: A Developer's Heartbreak and a Look Ahead

The highly anticipated Earthblade, from the creators of Celeste, has been cancelled. Extremely OK Games (EXOK) announced the difficult decision on their website, citing internal team issues as the primary reason.

In a statement, EXOK Director Maddy Thorson explained that a significant disagreement regarding the intellectual property rights of Celeste created a fracture within the team, involving herself, programmer Noel Berry, and former art director Pedro Medeiros. While a resolution was reached, it resulted in Medeiros departing to pursue his own project, Neverway. Thorson emphasized that there are no hard feelings, stating that Medeiros and his team are not the enemy.

The loss of Medeiros, coupled with the game's protracted development and the pressure stemming from Celeste's success, ultimately led to the cancellation. Thorson acknowledged that the project wasn't as far along as anticipated and that the team's creative energy had been depleted.

EXOK's Future Focus

With a smaller team, Thorson and Berry plan to refocus on smaller-scale projects, returning to a more organic development process reminiscent of their work on Celeste and TowerFall. They expressed hope for future collaborations with former team members.

Earthblade was envisioned as an explor-action platformer featuring Névoa, a child of Fate, journeying across a ruined Earth. While its cancellation is undoubtedly disappointing, EXOK's commitment to learning from this experience and pursuing future projects offers a glimmer of hope for fans.