ground sheetthe continuation of the 2018 2D platformer sky bluehas been cancelled, developer Extremely OK Games announced in a blog post on Wednesday.
“We made this decision in December and felt it was best to wait until now to announce it,” the developer wrote. “For us, on the inside, we've had some time to process, grieve, and work toward coming to terms with this, although that process is not linear and is still ongoing.”
The publication details a “disagreement over the intellectual property rights of sky blue”last year between former art director Pedro Medeiros and current members of Extremely OK Games, Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry. The three “eventually came to a resolution, but both sides also agreed in the end that we should go our separate ways.” Medeiros left the team in November and is currently working on his own game. I never walk.
Extremely OK Games says the disagreement wasn't the only reason for the game's cancellation, but it led the company to “seriously evaluate whether to fight until it's finished.” ground sheet “It was the right way to go.” Although it was announced in 2019, the team said it was “not as advanced as one would expect after such a lengthy development process.”
ground sheet was intended to be another 2D platformer in the style of sky blueborrowing its pastel pixel art style and exploration elements from Metroidvania. The game would have followed the main character Névoa as they explored a ruined Earth with a soundtrack composed by Lena Raine, who previously did the music for sky blue. The first images of the game were shown at the Game Awards 2024 and showed off its intricate 2D levels and somber tone.
“Sky blue Success pressured us to deliver something bigger and better with ground sheetand that pressure is a large part of why working on it has become so exhausting,” he wrote. “Peter is not to blame for this; In fact, breaking up with him has given us the clarity to see that we have lost our way and the opportunity to admit defeat. I feel it in many ways, but a great feeling is, without a doubt, relief.”
Other members of the team also decided to leave last year, leaving Thorson and Berry as the remaining employees of Extremely OK Games. The developer said he wants to “wipe the slate clean” and refocus on “smaller scale projects.” “We're prototyping again and exploring at our own pace, and trying to rediscover game development in a way closer to how we approach it at Sky blue either torrefall beginning.”