Today, Developer EXOK the creators of critically acclaimed Celeste, announced that their next game, Earthblade has been cancelled. The game was first announced in December 2022 at The Game Awards and has been in the works since. 

EXOK says there was a “fracture forming” within the team. This was a discussion between a founding member, a longtime friend, and the art director of Earthblade and Celeste, focusing on a disagreement regarding the intellectual property rights of Celeste.

“Earlier this year, a fracture began forming in the team. 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.”

As for what’s next the development team for Earthblade, the other members have moved on focusing on other video game projects. Noel and Maddy, the original founders of EXOK are working on smaller-scale projects

Celeste was released across Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and PC in 2018. The game has sold well over 500K units since it came out in 2018. 

What Was Earthblade?

Earthblade was an explor-action platformer featuring a lush pixel art world offering seamless exploration, challenging combat, and countless mysteries to pick apart.  

Below is the Earthblade reveal trailer: