Celeste developer Extremely OK Games has made the “difficult decision” to cancel the 2D “expor-action” game Earthblade.
This new project was originally revealed in 2021, and now a blog update has revealed that the project was canceled “late last month.” In short, there was conflict within the team “centered around a disagreement over Celeste's intellectual property rights.”
Although the team “eventually reached a resolution”, both parties agreed to go their separate ways – with EXOK founding member Pedro Medeiros now working on his own project Never. Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry insist that “Pedro and the Neverway team are not enemies,” and EXOK now wants to focus its energies on “smaller-scale projects.”
“Celesta's success put pressure on us to deliver something bigger and better with Earthblade, and that pressure is in large part why working on it became so draining. It's not Pedro's fault – in fact, the split with him gave us the clarity to see that we have lost the way and the opportunity to admit defeat. I feel many things, but one great feeling is undoubtedly relief… We are prototyping again and exploring at our own pace and trying to rediscover the development of the game in a way that is closer to what we are. accessed at the beginning of Celeste or TowerFall.”
You can get a full overview of Earthblade's cancellation from the developer official website.
