‘Fez 2’ Cancelled Following Heated Twitter Exchange
By Anthony Taormina 21 January 2014
Although Fez 2 was only just announced during a few months ago at E3 2013, the title has already been cancelled. The official Polytron Twitter account and then creator Phil Fish confirmed the news earlier today.
Easily one of the more unique indies to come out in quite some time, the narrative surrounding Fez was as much about the game itself as it was its storied development. Not to mention creator Phil Fish’s proclivity for rubbing people the wrong way.
If you haven’t seen the documentary Indie Game: The Movie we highly recommend it, as it documents Fish’s struggles to get Fez out into the world. It also provides some insight into the eccentric developer’s thought processes and will likely give you a better understanding of why Fez 2 might have been cancelled.
Prior to the final cancellation, Fish was embroiled in a heated Twitter discussion regarding Microsoft’s recent decision to allow self-publishing on the Xbox One. Surprisingly, the conversation hinged not on the notoriously candid developer’s thoughts on the policies, but both his and fellow noted indie developer Jonathan Blow’s decision to not comment on the policy changes when they were first leaked.
Specifically, their ‘no comment’ drew the ire of online critic and video game personality Marcus Beer a.k.a. ‘Annoyed Gamer,’ who accused the pair of withholding their opinions only when it wouldn’t help them sell their products. In keeping with Beer’s style, plenty of attacks and name-calling caught the attention of Fish and Blow, with both claiming that they simply didn’t want to comment without knowing the facts from Microsoft firsthand.
Fish defended himself – and launched return attacks of his own – on Twitter, citing Beer as merely the latest in a long line of critics who have disparaged his efforts. The reaction from his detractors went as expected, and before locking his account, Fish left fans with this message:
“im done. Fez II cancelled. goodbye.”
Fish’s message didn’t include an explanation, and now that his Twitter account is locked we likely won’t be hearing from him for at least a few days. Immediately following the surge in traffic, Fish clarified his motivations:
“to be clear, im not cancelling FEZ II because some boorish f*** said something stupid, im doing it to get out of games.
“and im getting out of games because i choose not to put up with this abuse anymore.”
Phil Fish might have a tendency to rub people the wrong way, but his game is something special (even if it’s not for everyone). In fact, it’s one of the few games to receive the coveted 5/5 review score from Game Rant.
However, even though Polytron and Fish say that Fez 2 is cancelled, we’re not ready to write the sequel off just yet. At several points during the first Fez‘s development it seemed like the title might never see the light of day — as documented in Indie Game: The Movie — but eventually everything worked out. Granted, the circumstances with which Fez made it to the XBLA were rather unique, and borderline miraculous, but it made it nonetheless.
Then, in May of this year, Fez was ported to the PC, further expanding the title’s reach. After the PC launch, Fish teased that Fez might end up on any and every platform (save for the PS3) as long as there was demand. However, with Fez 2 now cancelled, we doubt that will happen.
Are you disappointed to learn that Fez 2 has been cancelled? Do you think that the game will stay cancelled?
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Source: Phil Fish
