Although the planned new game “Earthblade” created by the “Celeste” development team Extremely OK Games was announced to be canceled earlier this year, the original composer Lena Raine still chose to use music as a carrier to present the unrealized world. She recently officially released a concept album titled “EARTHBLADE ~ Across the Bounds of Fate” on Bandcamp, using nine original tracks to construct her own “Earthblade”.
This album contains a number of “conceptual and practical” pieces of music. Raine said that he hopes to tell his interpretation of this work through music. The album is inspired by music styles such as electronic music master Vangelis, “Nausicaa” composer Joe Hisaishi, and “Cowboy Bebop” Yoko Kanno.
“Earthblade” was originally a new pixel action game created by Extremely OK Games, the development team of “Celeste”. It combined platform jumping and exploration elements. It was originally regarded as the next high-profile work in the independent game industry. However, it was recently confirmed that this work has been cancelled. The reason is not only that the development progress has stalled, but more importantly, the team failed to clarify the distribution of IP rights and creative leadership of the previous work, “Celeste”, resulting in a lack of internal trust and difficulty in continuing collaboration. Even though the technology and concept still have potential, in the absence of consensus on interests and direction, “Earthblade” could only be stopped sadly.
A concept album that goes beyond the soundtrack, dedicated to an impossible journey
Lena Raine describes the album on Bandcamp:
“‘Across the Bounds of Fate’ is not just a soundtrack, but a concept album. The music I wrote for ‘Earthblade’ was originally highly dynamic, continuing the musical tradition of my work on ‘Celeste’. I tried my best to reorganize these tracks into an emotional axis, hoping to show the emotional progression they originally represented.”
The total length of the album is about 30 minutes. For fans who love Raine’s previous works, such as “Celeste”, “Chicory” and “Deltarune”, it is undoubtedly a precious gift worth listening to carefully.
“Earthblade” cancellation review: a creative journey that cannot be continued
“Celeste” is a pixel-style platform action game produced by Extremely OK Games. It tells the story of the protagonist Madeline’s journey to climb the mysterious snow mountain Celeste. The game has been widely praised for its challenging jumping mechanism and delicate level design. It also deeply depicts the protagonist’s psychological struggle and self-reconciliation, and the emotional level directly touches people’s hearts. Since its launch in 2018, “Celeste” has not only swept multiple independent game awards, but has also been hailed as a new paradigm of platform games and one of the most representative independent masterpieces in recent years.
“TowerFall” is a fast-paced pixel-style multiplayer battle game. It uses bow and arrow duel as the core gameplay and supports local battles with up to four people. With its simple operation and high confrontation, it has become a popular party classic in the independent game circle, and has also established the popularity of the development team Extremely OK Games.
“Earthblade” was first announced at The Game Awards in 2022, but there has been little public news since then. In January this year, team founder Maddy Thorson published a blog post, officially announcing the cancellation of “Earthblade” due to differences in IP rights with the previous game “Celeste”. Thorson admitted in the article: “I have a lot of mixed feelings about this, but the biggest emotion is actually relief.”
She also pointed out that the team has now returned to the prototyping stage, trying to “rediscover the passion and inspiration for game development when making “Celeste” and “TowerFall.”
Although “Earthblade” ultimately failed to come out, Lena Raine expressed her hope that there will still be opportunities to continue the musical atmosphere depicted in this album and use it in future new works.
As she said: “Please immerse yourself in these thirty minutes of melody for now and imagine what I originally wanted “Earthblade” to be.”