Rest in Peace, Acid Wizard.

[๖ۣۜMk137]

Studio is going on an indefinite hiatus after the release of Darkwood 1.4. It is almost a certainty that this game will never be finished. What could have been...

[Unseen]

That same article said they were going to continue working on soccer kids it just might take a while. And DW2 is a possibility if its outsourced. It wouldn't be unusual plenty of game sequels were outsourced to other devs/publishers. Such as the fear sequels and expansions. Even the expansions which used the same engine as fear had different crew members. You can't make a game solely with the core builders everytime it just doesn't work like that. Games basically need teams of devs unless its something simple, like an indie game with simple pixel graphics. But an actual game with music themes, amazing artwork, crazy atmosphere darkwood wasn't a light game. And yea its a top down game, but it wasn't hardcore 3d physics or all this hardware stuff. It was the art put into it, and all the rest including the story they worked hard on DW. It take 5 years to make that game, and how do they top 5 years 10-20? Commit their whole lives to an interesting nightmare I mean that kind of work must be exhausting. It makes sense that the game they'd wanna work on is a fun tactical soccer game must be a break for them. Not to say soccer kids looks bad the level of gameplay and detail looks interesting for what it is. And it still has that abstract vibe that DW had.

I don't think they are going anywhere but everyone needs to consider some people don't make this to roll in billions or make some super franchise. Hell the makers are probably happy with its success and never expected it to be this well received. Not everyone needs 10s of millions of dollars for a product but I still bet DW made a ton of money had to of sold over a million. One of the greatest horror games I've played.

And also DW as a game, its assets and system are already established. If they outsource to someone else they can take whats currently made and add whatever creepy stuff they want. I'm not sure if a DW sequel would even work myself cause it just feels like one of those singularities that does well on its own. But they can always take it and expand upon it, add new areas, new co-op. Or hell let an ambitious studio even do the full 3d treatment I'd love to see the DW characters in more realistic graphics. But I don't think a game is dead just cause its not a milk franchise. Its like saying the shining is dead, frankenstein might work with series milking, but did silver bullet, or the thing?