SkytornCanceled

Celeste developers’ next project Skytorn is officially canceled

Skytorn looked promising, but now we won’t get a chance to try it out. 

The procedurally-generated Metroidvania adventure Skytorn, brought to us by several of the team members behind the massively popular Celeste, has officially been canceled.

Developer Noel Berry took to a blog post via Medium to discuss the status of the project, which he’s clarified that the team had unfortunately “just never figured out what it was.” There were a myriad of other reasons, too, but that seems to be the prevalent one in the Medium post.

Berry explained further that the game was simple “broken” at its core, especially as it was a procedurally-generated adventure game that didn’t include permadeath.

“Taking out the procedural parts felt like it defeated the purpose of what the game was, so as it shifted towards a more linear adventure, the procedural map stayed but simply got more and more constricted, until the procedural-ness of it didn’t really mean anything — it was just…there,” Berry explained in the blog post.

The team at work on Skytorn included Berry, character and portrait designer Amora Bettany, programmer and gameplay artist Pedro Medeiros, music creator Ben Prunty, and sound designer Power Up Audio. They began work on the game over five years ago, but took a break from doing so to start working on Celeste. It debuted January 2018, and has since been met with a variety of accolades.

“I’m really sorry for those of you who were excited about this game. We were too. We poured a lot of time, energy, and heart into the project and we’re definitely sad it’s never going to see the commercial release we were hoping for.”

What will the team be working on next? We’ll have to keep an eye out for their next project. For now, at least we still have the older footage above.