Earthblade, the next game from the team behind the acclaimed Celeste, has been cancelled. Announced in 2021, it was slated for release last year before a delay.
Extremely OK Games founder and R&D director Maddy Thorson and programmer Noel Berry decided on the same late last month.
It all started when Thorson and Berry disputed with art director and co-founder Pedro Medeiros regarding Celeste’s IP rights. “We eventually reached a resolution, but both parties also agreed in the end that we should go our separate ways,” Thorson wrote.
Medeiros has since co-founded Coldblood Inc. and is now working on a new title, Neverway. While it wasn’t the sole factor for cancellation, Thorson said it prompted the duo to “take a serious look at whether fighting through to finish Earthblade was the right path forward.
The project had a lot going for it, but, frustratingly, it was also not as far along as one would expect after such a protracted development process.” Though she believes Earthblade could have been great if they soldiered through, Thorson and Berry were conflicted, and the pressure from Celeste’s success didn’t help. “Noel and I also began to reflect on how the game has felt for us to work on day-to-day and realized that it has been a struggle for a long time.