Earthblade, the next game that was in development at Extremely OK Games, the same team behind 2018’s platforming-wonder Celeste, has been cancelled.
The news was announced on the studio’s website with a blog post titled “Final Earthblade Update,” and it doesn’t mince words, with studio director Maddy Thorson beginning by saying “I’ve got some sad news today to ring in 2025.”
‘Sad news’ is an understatement, considering that Celeste was one of the best games released in the last decade, and the excitement for Earthblade was palpable among indie game fans.
As to why the game is being cancelled, Thorson is clear to say that the decision to cancel the game came from themselves, and Noel Berry. However that decision came after the founding team of Thorson, Berry, and Pedro Medeiros, was split, or “fractured,” as Thorson says, over a disagreement around the IP rights for Celeste.
“We eventually reached a resolution,” Thorson writes, “but both parties also agreed in the end that we should go our separate ways.” Medeiros announced two months ago on Bluesky that he had left Extremely OK Games, and is now working on a game called Neverway.
Thorson describes that once Medeiros had left the studio, themselves and Berry had serious and difficult discussions about continuing Earthblade’s development.
“Losing Pedro wasn’t the only factor in cancelling the game, but it did prompt us 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.
I do believe that if we soldiered on despite it all, that Earthblade could still be a great game. But would it be worth the pain? 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. Sure, working on one project for so long is bound to become a slog, but this feels like a deeper problem.
Celestes’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.”
Regarding what’s next for the team, it’s essentially back to the drawing board. Both Thorson and Berry are beginning to prototype and work on smaller-scale projects, and “trying to rediscover game development in a manner closer to how we approached it at Celeste’s or TowerFall’s inception.”
Thorson continues, “Scaling the core team up post-Celeste has ultimately been a failure, and that’s okay. We gave it all we’ve got, and life goes on. We are happy to return to our roots and reclaim some joy in our creative process, and see where that takes us.”
Earthblade was first announced back in 2021, and then properly revealed at The Game Awards the following year. After that, the only update we’d gotten on the game came this past March, at which point Thorson made it clear that the game would not be out by the end of 2024.
It is extremely sad to know that Earthblade won’t be coming anymore, but Thorson’s honesty with this announcement is a comfort in the sense that fans of Extremely OK Games and its team members can rest easy knowing these artists are taking care of themselves and their craft.
Whatever they do next will no doubt be something to look out for.
Source – [Extremely OK Games]