Darwinia studio Introversion has shelved its hi-tech heist sim Subversion indefinitely.
The news was broken on Introversion's forum when the creative head Chris Delay revealed that the developer was submitting a previously unrevealed game to the 2011 Independent Games Festival instead of Subversion.
Delay explained that the reason behind the cancellation was that the studio had got its balance of resources wrong, dedicating too much to the tech and not enough the actual gameplay. The idea for the new game arrived more fully formed, and as the studio doesn't have the man-power for more than one project, "it was one game or the other".
“Internally we had come to realise that somewhere along the six years of part-time development, we had lost our way," he writes. "We couldn’t even remember what sort of game it was supposed to be anymore.
"We’d ended up with a game that looked and sounded brilliant, classic Introversion with its blue wireframe and sinister faceless characters. But there was a massive gaping hole where you would normally see a ‘core game’. We’d tried and tried to fill that hole with ambitious tech and experimental systems, but you couldn’t escape it.
"We’ve made the fatal mistake of having more fun making the game than gamers would ever have playing it.”
Delay stresses that Subversion is by no means cancelled, but urges expectant fans to "forget about it for now".
The new game is unrelated to any of the studios previous output, which includes Uplink and DEFCON, but Delay isn't ready to reveal any further details yet.
We previewed Subversion back in issue 218 of Edge.
Source: Rock Paper Shotgun