🐱 Why Fez II Was Canceled

Why Fez II Was Canceled

New fans of Fez might wonder why it hasn't received a sequel. The answer lies in its creator's contentious relationship with the games industry.

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New fans of Fez might wonder why it hasn't received a sequel. The answer lies in its creator's contentious relationship with the games industry.
A Nintendo Switch port of Fez was announced during April's Indie World Showcase. In spite of originally being released in 2012, the seminal indie game was one of the highlights of a presentation that featured newer games like TMNT: Shredder's Revenge and Skul: The Hero Slayer. Players introduced to Fez on the Switch through its surprise launch might why there's never been a sequel to the innovative platformer. It's understandable that they wouldn't know the story behind the cancellation of Fez II by its creator, Phil Fish.

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Fish was the main creator behind Fez, and the final, arduous phase of its five year development cycle was chronicled in the documentary Indie Game: The Movie. That spotlight gave the developers chronicled (Fish, Braid's Jonathan Blow, and Super Meat Boy's Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillen) a higher profile than the average indie developer. That proved to be a double edged sword for Fish.

Fish became a polarizing figure. He was outspoken, especially on Twitter, where he frequently commented on his distaste for the gaming industry and gamers themselves. This helps to explain how the developer of such a beloved game could have such a toxic reputation, even if his comments didn't warrant the level of hate Fish received.


Fish's comments that Japanese games "just sucked" following a Game Developer's Conference screening of Indie Game: The Movie are an example of how he rubbed people the wrong way. Fish leveled his criticism at Japanese developer Makoto Goto after Goto asked for his opinion on modern Japanese games. Fish responded with his trademark brutal honesty. He and Jonathan Blow critiqued the Japanese gaming scene circa 2012, with Blow calling them "joyless husks" according to a later account from Fish. Fish took most of the heat online, though he would later apologize to Goto, who thanked him for his honesty.

The seeds of Fish's departure from the industry were the further planted with his company Polytron's contentious relationship with Microsoft. The Xbox 360 version of Fez, which was exclusive to the console for a year, needed a post-launch patch to iron out some bugs. Unfortunately, the patch caused save corruption issues for one percent of the game's players.

Polytron withdrew the patch, planning to submit a new one to correct the save corruption. Unfortunately, Microsoft's policy at the time would have cost Polytron a fee for subsequent patches. Rather than incur the costs, Polytron restored the problematic patch. Fish became a vocal critic of Microsoft and announced he had no plans to bring Fez II to the Xbox One.


Ironically, Fish's lack of a response was the inciting incident for Fez II's cancellation. Shortly after the game was announced in 2013, Fish and Blow chose not to comment on Microsoft's rumored decision to allow self-publishing on the Xbox One, citing a lack of information on the policy. Commentator Marcus Beer criticized the pair on the Invisible Walls podcast for their outsized presence in indie gaming, mocking them as the "self-styled kings of the indie genre" who only talked to the media when it benefited them.

Beer was especially vitriolic toward Fish, with "hipster" being the nicest thing he called the developer. Fish responded on Twitter, and the situation escalated to the point where Fish suggested that Beer compare his life to Fish's and kill himself. This may have been a poorly timed reference to a line from Futurama's Bender.

The incident was a breaking point for Fish. He announced the cancellation of Fez II and his exit from the gaming industry, saying that he chose "not to put up with this abuse anymore." The following year, Fish was hacked and doxxed by Gamergate supporters due to his support of Zoe Quinn. He vowed to leave gaming and Twitter once again, this time adding that the Fez IP and Polytron were up for sale. Fish has kept a low profile in recent years. He did work on the early PlayStation VR game SuperHyperCube with experimental gaming collective Kokoromi. However, Fez II remains cancelled, leaving the original to stand on its own.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Fish was a mouthbreathing faggot that flounced off during Gamergate because he felt his genius wasn't appreciated.

He was last seen DJing for shitty Indie parties. No shit. DJ Phil Fish.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

A Hat in Time is one of the indie games that do interest me, I own it already on Steam, but I just haven't worked up enough interest to justify playing it as opposed to the many other games I can play yet.

I actually do recommend it, once you do work up the interest. If you haven't gotten the DLC to go with it, definitely do. It enhances the experience exponentially, Nyakuza Metro more so than Seal the Deal. The endless mods are another benefit too.

 

[jje100010001]

Because other people did all the work and Fish burned every bridge with them so he could take all the credit, and money.

Wasn't Fez mostly based on Fish's friend's work anyways? Guess other people have mentioned it already.

Going more in depth. You can split indies pretty well into three categories:
* Emotional games - Your "deep" games that journos love and can be completed in 2 hours tops. They are just a presentation and/or a shitty depression metaphor.
* Gimmick/derivative games - A game that is based on some play on a popular formula. Either a gimmick like a unique control scheme, that gets old fast and the devs quickly run out of things to do with it, or some derivative of a genre like (or really always) "Dark Souls in X".
* Retro games/developer baby - A game that could have been good had it come up 30 years ago.

TBH, there is room to do a decent 'derivative game', especially in the strategy, 4X and simulation genres, which tend to be far more starved in terms of AAA content. That being said, sometimes those gimmicks/mechanics can be far too ambitious, and you end up with something like Ancient Cities or Clockwork Empires (which ultimately look like instances of devs biting off more than they could technically achieve).

In other instances like what you've said, the released product does end up feeling like a tech demo, since there really isn't enough to do with said mechanic(s), and the now-common early access release schedules can end up turning your game into a dribble of content, which can feel underwhelming compared to a traditional release.

 

[frozenrunner]

The only good things coming out of the indie scene nowadays seem to be strategy/sim games aimed at a specific slice of the population that actually gives a shit about fun and interesting games. Stuff like Prison Architect, Project Zomboid, and Grim Dawn come to mind, where it's obvious that the devs give a fuck about their craft and the feedback of their audience. Everything else is 2deep4u walking simulators or the aformentioned Darksouls / Generic pixel platformer clones.

The indie game scene is certainly flooded with derivative crap these days (my "favorite" genre is the "black and while indie side-scroller starring a small character in a dark and scary world"), no argument there. It was better 10 years ago. But the occasional great indie stuff is still way, way better than the AAA EA/Ubisoft design-by-committee risk averse trash (or battle royale clones) that dominates big releases. At least half of the great games I've played over the last decade have been indies, and maybe more than half.

I look at consoles now and can barely understand why anyone buys them. I might get a Switch for that Nintendo quality, but I genuinely have no clue why anyone would want another Xbox. I really don't understand modern console warz. Why would anyone be passionate about another AAA DLC/digital download box?

 

[whatever I feel like]

The only good thing about Phil Fish ever was that he had the balls to call out the Japanese game industry at its nadir. Shit was really wrong over there at the tail of the 360 generation, though its thankfully since fixed itself.