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Descent Underground, as it was originally called, started on Kickstarter and STEAM Early Access several years ago (Probably 2015 or so). Descendent Studios formed by former Star Citizen Team members [!], cobbled together a somewhat mediocre tech demo that allowed to play some Multiplayer Maps either vs. other players or AI. The community wasn't massively impressed, as the controls seemed very weird and especially about the fact that it was to become a multiplayer only title, that was tumbleweed county for most of the time anyway. The STEAM reviews were less than stellar for that matter.
Descent Studios, in a move to get rid of the criticism, decided to pull the game from Early Access on STEAM, so the store page vanished. They promised to start ironing out the issues and most importantly to add a proper single player campaign. People that bought the game on STEAM however, were left out of the loop, as no further updates would be rolled out to STEAM. They then introduced yet another layer of pay-in alpha testing, by coming up with another crowdfunding scheme called 'the underground', or something along that lines.People that paid into that, would get to see new maps and other improvements.
Meanwhile a proper DESCENT sequel, made by former Paralax Software guys released with a very positive overall reception. That game is called OVERLOAD. The critics and players really liked it, however being such a niche genre, it was far from a commercial success.
Descendent Studios, still working on Descent Underground, now renamed Descent 2019, eventually ran out of cash, so they decided they'd bring a publisher on board to hook them up with fresh moolah. To make that happen, they convinced LITTLE ORBIT (a crap publisher, dead as a doornail imo) to buy into the game. Either of the two parties now added console ports into the mix, so Descendent Studios then had to shoehorn all the console stuff into their unfinished game aswell. At the end of 2018 the developers went on social media and stated that the game and single player campaign was completely done and ready to release.
From then on, the channels on STEAM and social media went silent. Obviously the game never released. From digging through discord servers and other first hand info from the developers; which wouldn't bother to come on the games discussion page on STEAM at all anymore; the customers learnt that there was some misunderstanding between Little Orbit and Descendent Studios, regarding the ownership of the Descent IP. Sort of a legal limbo.
As Eric 'Wingman' Peterson put it, the publisher tried to scam them out of the Descent IP. The community was rightfully suspicious about this onesided story, as they only got some barebones info from one of the parties, namely the developers. They kept repeating, that the issues with Little Orbit, would be resolved eventually and the 'finished' game would release soon.
13 months went by since then. Descendent Studios was eventually disbanded, their website and the matchmaking servers for the poor Multiplayer game (the last client on STEAM from years ago), went offline. So people that bought the game on STEAM or other platforms can't play the Alpha version anymore.
Oddly enuff, the game was still available for preorder on GOG, despite the fact, that it is totally unclear if the game will release at all. The store page would read 'Coming Soon' and each year they simply pushed the release date exactly 365 days further. At the moment GOG reads that Descent 2019 will relase on 31st of December 2020...basicly in 2021 (naming conventions are for wussies).
The latest news/ state of the game is this: People that bought it anywhere are still without a game, the alpha version only allows to play MP maps against a barebones AI and is basicly a client that is at least 4 years old by now. The developers keep repeating that it will release and people will get what they paid for, however they plan to do so when they release the game as a LAUNCH TITLE for Playstation 5 and the successor to the XBOX 1, basicly the next console generation. Yes, it is as pathetic as it sounds. PC customers were dragged into a poorly managed Kickstarter and Early access campaign, and now are told that the product they paid for and that is, according to the developers' feature complete and ready to launch, is delayed until the next CONSOLE GENERATION is in the stores.
From digging through legal documents from the state of California, we learnt that the Publisher Little Orbit has now sued Descendent Studios/ Eric Peterson. There is no further info on what the contents of this lawsuit revolves around.
My take is: Ineptitude of the Developers, mismanagement and eventually a ton of wasted development funds that went into thousands of social media videos where the devs would play multiplayer matches against each other praising the quality of their nonexistant game.
None of the single player campaign or other substantial stuff that would confirm the 'done' state of the game has ever materialized [*edit] for the STEAM crowd.
I'd really love to see what Little Orbit's take on all of this is. Is it possible, that they sued Descendent Studios, cuz they failed to deliver on the milestones?
Is it a surprise, that former Star Citizen developers failed to complete a proper game.
Probably not!
The singleplayer campaign did materialize. It was, bugs not withstanding, fully available to proving grounds level backers. I have played some of it as Eric was kind enough to provide access.