The next game from Celeste’s developer has been cancelled

Celeste developer Extremely OK Games has canceled its next game, Earthblade.

The game, which was announced in 2021, has been canceled due to internal development issues, as well as a dispute between Celeste‘s creators over the rights to the IP, it said.

“Earlier this year, a fracture began forming in the team,” wrote the studio’s director of R&D, Maddy Thorson. “Specifically, this was between us (Noel & I) and Pedro, a founding member of EXOK, longtime friend & collaborator, and art director of Earthblade, and pixel/ui artist on Celeste and TowerFall.

“The conflict centered around a disagreement about the IP rights of Celeste, which we won’t be detailing publicly – this was obviously a very difficult and heartbreaking process. We eventually reached a resolution, but both parties also agreed in the end that we should go our separate ways.”

Thorson went on to say that losing art director Pedro wasn’t the “only factor” in the cancellation. Thorson also writes, “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.”

Concluding, Thorson said that the studio would continue to develop smaller projects going forward. “We’re prototyping again and exploring at our own pace, and trying to rediscover game development in a manner closer to how we approached it at Celeste’s or TowerFall’s inception.”

The studio’s previous game, Celeste, was released for consoles and PC in January 2018. The award-winning platformer was created by Thorson and co-developer Noel Berry, with art outsourced to Brazilian studio MiniBoss.

It was praised for its tight platforming mechanics as well as its depiction of mental health, with the game’s main character struggling with anxiety as she scales an imposing mountain.

The game’s final story chapter, titled Chapter 9: Farewell, was released as a free update in September 2019 and added over 100 new levels plus 40 minutes of new music.