Extremely OK Games, the developer behind indie hits Celeste and TowerFall, announced in a blog post that their newest game, Earthblade, will not be releasing this year.
Maddy Thorson, the director of Extremely OK, wrote in the post that the team had planned to have a concrete release date by this point, but it is simply not possible at this time.
“More on the process in the following paragraphs, but first we need to face the music: this game ain’t coming out in 2024,” Thorson wrote. “We know that this will be disappointing for a lot of you and we’re sorry for that. Maybe this was predictable, but still it always sucks when the haters are right.”
To help move Earthblade along, the team is adding a new game designer: Kyle Pulver, an indie developer and old friend of Thorson’s who has worked on games like Super Meat Boy Forever and Rivals of Aether 2. He is also the world champion of Extremely OK’s own TowerFall.
“Kyle quickly approached us with big ideas, which can be scary for everyone involved. But it was clear that he’s not here to derail the project,” Thorson wrote. “He’s identifying our vision and the problems preventing the game from living up to it, and working with us to pinpoint solutions. Plus his fresh eyes have inspired all of us to see things anew.”
“EXOK is very resistant to growing our team. Two big concerns with adding team members are increasing communication overhead, and creating more financial pressure as our burn rate balloons,” she continued. “What pushed us to recruit Kyle was the realization that I had become the bottleneck. I’ve struggled to keep up with my workload and provide a strong direction for the team, while navigating all of the challenges of my personal life, including my gender transition.”
Thorson emphasized that, despite the challenges along the way, the team still believed in Earthblade, and felt that the setbacks along the way have informed it in ways that would not have occurred if development had gone perfectly from the start.
“The good news is that the game is not stagnant, we are still making progress and we’re still excited to work on it,” Thorson wrote.