20 Ridiculous Reasons Video Games Were Cancelled

2012's Fez was one of the cornerstone titles in the indie game revolution of the 2010s, with designer Phil Fish becoming something of a cult figure thanks to his appearance in the brilliant 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie.

Fez's enormous success led Fish to announce a sequel at E3 2013, but a mere month later the game was abruptly cancelled following a Twitter argument between Fish and games journalist Marcus Beer.

Fish concluded the exchange by expressing his disdain for the gaming industry's negativity, before announcing both the cancellation of Fez 2 and his own exit from the industry as a whole.

This was a decision Fish made unliterally without first informing his employees at Polytron Corporation, and the suddenness of the cancellation sent shockwaves throughout the industry.

Fish did later work on the 2016 game SuperHyperCube, but has largely stayed outside of games development for the past decade, and in a 2023 interview admitted that he had little enthusiasm for Fez 2, with the Twitter beef being an easy "out" for him to nix the game.

A developer dropping one of the most acclaimed games of their era, swiftly cancelling the sequel and then peacing out is virtually unheard of, but if Fish is happy with the work he produced and the money he made - as the recent interview suggests he is - then good for him.