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Ever since E3 2014, Scalebound has been one of Microsoft's biggest upcoming Xbox exclusive games. The title has been in development for years over at Platinum Games under the leadership of Hideki Kamiya, who was also behind Devil May Cry, Bayonetta and Resident Evil 2. Unfortunately, it looks like the relationship between Platinum and Microsoft has gone sour, leading to reports of the game's cancellation.
Scalebound was initially supposed to come out before the end of 2016 but was pushed back to 2017. However, today Microsoft has confirmed that the game has ceased production, in a statement sent to the press, a Microsoft representative said: “After careful deliberation, Microsoft Studios has come to the decision to end production for Scalebound. We’re working hard to deliver an amazing lineup of games to our fans this year, including Halo Wars 2, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves and other great experiences.”
We don't know all the gritty details of what went down between Microsoft and Platinum Games to get to this point but according to sources speaking with Eurogamer, several members of upper management at the studio were overworked on the project, causing them to take a few weeks off. By the time they returned, the game was behind schedule, leading to further conflict.
Given that the game's cancellation is now public, we will likely hear some inside information regarding what went down during Scalebound's development. We have yet to get confirmation on whether or not Scalebound is owned by Microsoft or Platinum Games, but either way, we won't be playing the dragon taming action adventure title any time soon.
KitGuru Says: I have been looking forward to Scalebound ever since it was announced, despite the initial impressions of the main character, especially after finding out it was coming to PC. The game even looked close to finished the last time we saw it, so I am very intrigued by this cancellation. Hopefully we learn what exactly went down soon.
Sucks looked like it would have been a fairly interesting game. I guess the upper management that took the time off found out what it is like in the real world and Microsoft most likely got tired of waiting for the game to be ready and released. I guess time will tell what actually happened.
Just being behind schedule does not seem an adequate reason for cancellation; myriad projects are behind schedule and face delays. It’s always been this way and I doubt it’ll change any time soon. Considering that Microsoft has probably poured a few million into this project, it seems likely that internal review showed that the game would never live up to expectations.
Once you’re this far into a project, you need a really good reason to cancel, because you lose a large investment. So most likely Microsoft just expected that the project would never amount to a good game and that investing any further money (not to mention the millions they would be spending on marketing) was not justified.
well it says overworked, they had to take a month off if thats an indicator, sounds like microsoft was pushing it really hard and it wasnt ready so they said F it.
It would seem it was too much for PlatnumGames. They make smaller games most of the time. Guess this one was to big.
Ah yes, worked on Microsoft projects myself. One week we got a slap on the back, and a thanks for getting the projects completed. (Vista OS related). Two weeks later we were all looking for new jobs.
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you say that like it’s surprising… you cursed the world with Vista….
Darn, I was actually waiting for this RPG rarity in combo with worries about having to get & deal with Store.
I mean if you took “a few weeks off” when you had already under-worked upon the game you are contracted to make, I’m pretty sure they’d have a reason to be pissed off.
I made another comment about this game here about it looking interesting and it might be who knows. But the more I look at the game videos I have to wonder why they decked him out with headphones. Is he trying to be the cool kid on the block or something..lol anyways if they were behind and to small of a company to handle this project maybe they should have said something or hired a few more people I am sure MS gave them a pretty big budget to do this game if the money was spent on other things other than Bills to keep the company going and wages somebody surely mishandled the money I would think. Oh well if MS owns the rights to the game I am sure they will pick it up and hand it off to another studio at some point in the future.