Extremely OK gamesIt’s been three years since Celeste, the perfect pixel platformer, first appeared. Since then, the people who made it have teamed up to create a brand new studio – Extremely OK Games – and strived for what follows.
Today, that question finally has an answer: Earthblade, a “2D action-exploration game” set in a “world of seamless pixel art”, with the entire Celeste team working together to create a worthy, long-awaited “20XX” chase.
The revelation on Twitter was not a complete trailer, not even an early screenshot, but instead something that EXOK calls “vibration revelation”, with a superb keyart, the title and the music of Lena Raine, which set the tone. Old school JRPG fans will be extremely happy with the vibe, reminiscent of the Secret of Mana and days spent cross-legged at a friend’s house on a rainy Saturday, playing video games until your mom comes to pick you up.
Even that title – “Earthblade” – clearly evokes Earthbound and the kind of games that were very much inspired even by the fantasy books of the adventures and the old school.
Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry, Amora B and Pedro Medeiros and Heidy Motta form the EXOK team – all worked at Celeste and some also worked at Towerfall. The audio design is managed by the Vancouver studio, Power Up Audio, whose work you can learn from Cadence of Hyrule, Darkest Dungeon and Super Meat Boy Forever, while the musical score is made by Lena Raine, who also made music for Celeste and wrote the music for the Nether Update of Minecraft. A pretty big list of credits, then!
While there isn’t much more to see or say about Earthblade until it features some of the art, we’re pretty interested in how the game will develop the ideas and design behind Celeste and Towerfall in a more like-minded way. with a traditional RPG. For now, we’ll have to hope he comes to Switch … which he probably will, given Celeste’s popularity on the platform.
Is this the pursuit for Celeste that you are hoping for or is it a surprising new direction? Tell us what you think about Earthblade in the comments!