Phil Fish, founder of Polytron and the mind behind the spectacular Xbox 360 and PC game FEZ, has announced that FEZ 2 is officially cancelled after a fight on Twitter. Yes, seriously. According to Kotaku, it all started when a recent episode of Invisible Walls opened with Marcus Beer ripping into Fish and another indie developer, Jonathan Blow, for apparently having a sense of entitlement about themselves, as well as their apparent lack of interest in responding to interview requests in the wake of the Xbox One reversing prior policies and now allowing indie developers to self-publish. (Fish had previously answered “not Xbox” when asked which platforms FEZ 2 would be coming to, and has been quite vocal in his displeasure with how Microsoft has been handling things.) Beer also accused Fish of only seeking positive publicity for himself, rather than being willing to answer questions that may put him in a negative light.
Fish responded on Twitter, demanding an apology. He also told Beer to kill himself, then finally lamented that he was tired of what he called nonstop criticism and ugliness online, swiftly announcing that FEZ 2 was no more, then re-posting the announcement on the official Polytron account.
Phil Fish is no stranger to controversy or the public eye — he was featured heavily in Indie Game: The Movie, as was FEZ. We’ll keep you posted if anything else develops.
Sources: Kotaku, GameTrailers, Twitter, Polygon