MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
It’s never enjoyable to see a game being cancelled, but the announcement that Re-Logic is halting development of Terraria: Otherworld is particularly saddening. Announced three years ago, the sequel to the cult-hit Terraria had an exciting vision for anyone who sunk more than a couple of hours into the original. Now, however, it seems that hitting the level of quality the developer (and fans) hoped for was taking too long.
“Re-Logic’s focus has and always will be on delivering complete and quality game experiences to our fanbase,” says Re-Logic’s head of business strategy and marketing, Ted "Loki" Murphy, in a blog post. “This means that we will not compromise game quality for speed to market or for any other reasons within our control. Our team has a clear vision for this game – one that we shared with all of you with much shared excitement – and, in spite of all of our efforts, the current state of the game remains equal parts far from that vision and beyond behind schedule from our initial planning when we shared Otherworld with all of you three years ago.
“As a result, we have made the decision to terminate development of Terraria: Otherworld.”
Murphy goes on to say that ideas and features used in the game will not go to waste, with potential for them to be carried over to other projects. With that said, development on the original Terraria is still ongoing, with more updates planned for the future. Not bad for a 7-year-old game.
“We sincerely thank both of our external development teams for their hard work on the game, but at some point, we have to be honest with ourselves and realize that Otherworld simply is never going to reach its potential in any sort of reasonable time or fashion,” Murphy continues.
“We know that the cancellation of Terraria: Otherworld will not be happy news to anyone. It is FAR from a happy moment for us either, when we look at all the time/effort/resources that we poured into the project. However, we feel strongly that we owe it to our community and loyal customers to uphold the standards that both you and we expect and to focus on delivering the best possible games that we can for you all to play.
"Come whatever may, quality is simply not something we are willing to compromise on to make a quick buck. It may be painful in the short term, but our sincere hope is that it will pay off for everyone in the long term in regard to our future games. T:OW will never come to pass, but its lessons learned and ideas generated will absolutely yield dividends for everyone.”
