Originally unveiled at The Game Awards back in 2022, Earthblade was a Metroidvania game that looked extremely promising, especially for folks who were excited to see what the Celeste developers were cooking up next.
Unfortunately, in a new update post from Extremely OK Games, game developer Maddy Thorson has announced that Earthblade has been officially canceled. Thorson stated that they had made the decision back in December, and also apologizes for disappointing fans.
Thorson stated that a fracture within the team began forming when they had a falling out with Pedro Medeiros, a pixel artist and co-founder of Extremely OK Games. The dispute centered around the IP rights for Celeste, and Medeiros ended up leaving the team. It’s worth noting that Medeiros had also been a key figure in Earthblade‘s development, as his art style was pretty much the defining factor of the game’s look and aesthetic.
Moving on from that, Thorson also mentioned that even after so many years in development, Earthblade was still not far enough along as the team had hoped. Ultimately, the team realized that working on Earthblade day in and day out had become a real struggle, and Thorson also mentioned that the success of Celeste may have put unnecessary pressure on them as well. All of these factors led to them ultimately deciding to cancel the game.
Thorson ends the blog post by stating that with Earthblade now being canceled, the team plans to wipe the slate clean and go back to focusing on smaller-scale projects. They’ve yet to announce anything new, but we’ll keep you updated as more info comes our way.
Published: Jan 23, 2025 12:09 am