John Smedley’s Hero’s Song isn’t coming out after all
John Smedley’s pixel art RPG Hero’s Song has been cancelled due to unsatisfactory sales. Learn how to get a refund for the Steam Early Access version.
Failing a Kickstarter campaign didn’t stop John Smedley – former Sony Entertainment and Daybreak Games president – and his new indie studio Pixelmage Games from putting their debut project on Steam Early Access. Unfortunately, Hero’s Song, an ambitious-sounding pixel art RPG, hasn’t made enough impact and thus it had to be cancelled and the studio dissolved. Here’s an excerpt from the official message to the fans posted by Smedley:
It's with a heavy heart that I have to report that Pixelmage Games is going to be shutting down and we have ceased development on Hero's Song. For the last year, our team has worked tirelessly to make the game we've dreamed about making, and with your support, and the support of our investors, we were able to get the game into Early Access. Unfortunately sales fell short of what we needed to continue development. We knew going in that most startups don't make it, and as an indie game studio we hoped we would be the exception to that rule, but as it turned out we weren't.
Everyone who invested in the development of the project will be fully refunded – if you bought the game, visit the official website to learn how to get your money back.
Hero’s Song was supposed to be an open-world fantasy RPG with rich backstory and procedurally generated world, based on the players’ choice of its dominant gods. The developers talked about challenging action-based combat and deep gameplay. The players were also to be able to invite others to their games and enjoy an MMO-like experience. Sadly, all that will neve go beyond the early design.
