Extremely Ok Games, the studio behind the critically acclaimed Celeste, announced the cancellation of its anticipated sequel project, Earthblade. In a blog post by Maddy Thorson, she expressed how they began the year with a “huge, heartbreaking and yet relieving failure.”

In the post, Maddy Thorson explained that this decision came after facing challenging internal conflicts regarding the intellectual property (IP) rights of Celeste, leading to dissatisfaction among team members, particularly between her, Noel Berry, and Art Director Pedro Medeiros, the latter of whom has since left to work on his own project, Neverway. Thorson reassured fans that Medeiros was not to blame and acknowledged that his departure prompted the team to reassess Earthblade’s development progress, which was not as advanced as expected after several years of work.

“We gave it all we got, and life goes on,” Thorson concluded, hinting at the studio’s potential new path moving forward as they re-enter the prototyping phase of their development process.