Celeste Teams' next game, Earthblade, canceled

For fans of the 2D platformer Celeste, you'll be sad to hear that the developer's next game, Earthblade, has been cancelled.

in a blog post Titled “The Final Earthblade Update,” Extremely OK Games has announced that the follow-up to its award-winning game Celeste has been cancelled. In the post, EXOK R&D Director Maddy Thorson details the reasons behind the decision and the studio's next steps.

“Late last month, Noel (Berry, EXOK computer programmer) made the difficult decision to cancel Earthblade… We made this decision in December and thought it best to wait until now to announce it.”

Thorson's post details that sometime last year, a dispute arose between Thorson and Berry, as well as Earthblade artistic director Pedro Medeiros, over Celeste's intellectual property rights. Thorson declined to reveal the details of the dispute, saying only that a resolution was reached and Medeiros parted ways with the team and is now working on an independent game called Neverway.

However, the controversy gave Thorson and Berry a chance to examine their situation on Earthblade and discover that the project wasn't going the way they had hoped. “Noel and I also began to reflect on how the game felt about our day-to-day work and realized that it had long been a strong point. Of course, working on a project for such a long time was bound to be difficult.” It was tough. , but this feels like a deeper issue. “

Thorson said Celeste's success “put pressure on us to deliver bigger and better things with Earthblade, and that pressure is a big reason why our job has become so exhausting.” Thorson said It also said that the dispute with Medeiros “makes it clear to us that we have lost our way and gives us the opportunity to admit defeat.”

As for what's next, Thorson said she and Berry are prototyping new ideas again and trying to get back to a similar game development process as they did with Celeste and Tower Falls.

Released in 2018, Celeste is a return to the pixelated 2D platformers of old. The game's excellent level design, difficulty, music, and everything else earn it a perfect score from us. celeste review. The trailer for Earthblade was released in 2022, showing that it will be a new 2D platformer.

Matt Kim is IGN's senior features editor.