Celeste studio cancels "2D explor-action game" Earthblade nearly four years after its announcement"It has been a struggle for a long time."Image credit: Extremely OK Games News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Jan. 23, 2025 Extremely OK Games - the studio behind beloved 2018 platformer Celeste - has announced the cancellation of its "2D explor-action" project Earthblade, calling the news a "huge, heartbreaking, and yet relieving failure".Extremely OK unveiled Earthblade back in 2021, sharing some mood-setting teaser art and a musical snippet. A full reveal arrived a year and a half later, offering an early glimpse of a side-scrolling platformer - blending elements of combat and exploration - that would see an "enigmatic child of Fate returning at long last to Earth".At the time, the project was expected to arrive in 2024, but Extremely OK confirmed a delay last March. And while it didn't commit to a new release window, it moved to assure fans progress was not "stagnant" and that the team was "still excited to work on it".Earthblade reveal trailer.Watch on YouTubeToday, however, the studio has announced Earthblade is no more. In a lengthy post shared on the Extremely OK website, studio director Maddy Thorson went into some of the factors leading to the project's cancellation. These include a "disagreement about the IP rights of Celeste" which, as painted in today's announcement, saw Thorson and Noel Berry on one side and studio "founding member" Pedro Medeiros on the other.Thorson says the issue was eventually resolved following a "very difficult and heartbreaking process", but noted the outcome resulted in Medeiros' departure from the Earthblade project after "both parties... agreed in the end that we should go our separate way".This, in turn, prompted the remaining members of Extremely OK to "take a serious look at whether fighting through to finish Earthblade was the right path forward". And while the project "had a lot going for it", according to Thorson, "it was also not as far along as one would expect after such a protracted development process.""Noel and I also began to reflect on how the game has felt for us to work on day-to-day," Thorson continued, "and realised 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. Celeste'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," Thorson stressed. "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."With Earthblade officially no more, other members of the team have also "moved on". However, Thorson and Berry now plan to "take all of the (many!) lessons we've learned... wipe the slate clean, and refocus ourselves back to smaller-scale projects." As a result, the duo are "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.""We are happy to return to our roots," Thorson concluded, "and reclaim some joy in our creative process, and see where that takes us."