Fez 2 Cancellation: More Details

Earlier this week Phil Fish, creator of popular indie game, Fez, was seen in an internet brawl with Marcus Beer of Gametrailers.com. The catalyst of the argument were comments made by Beer on the Gametrailers show “Invisible Walls” about Phil Fish and his decision to not speak about the Xbox One’s self publishing feature that was recently announced by Microsoft.

“Gents,” Beer said. “You were the guys who did Indie Game: the Movie. And some of you looked relatively normal in it, one of you looked like a total tosspot in it. But you can’t have it both ways. You’re successful game designers — you’re ‘indie’ game designers — hurrah, good for you, you f*****g hipsters.”

The fight between the two became ugly on both sides, with Beer attacking Fish with personal comments about his recent ex-girlfriend and his quality of work and Fish saying things like “Compare your life to mine then kill yourself” and calling Beer a  “Media Leech.”

Throughout the conversation, Fish requested that Beer apologizes to Fish on camera, in which they refused.

Fish continued on by saying things “I f***ing hate this industry” and ended it all with “im done. Fez II is cancelled. goodbye.”. Polytron, the company founded by Fish and responsible for developing Fez II later posted on their website that they were sad to say that Fez II had been officially canceled.

Since then, multitudes of opinions have poured out from users on various sites across the internet, one opinion coming from the Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszenski, where he pleaded Fish to come back to industry from the depths of his personal blog, saying “Come back, Phil. We miss you already. Maybe I’ll be right behind you, returning with Adamantium skin.”.

Polytron producer, Marie Christine Bourdua was also surprised by the announcement.

Bourdua stated in an interview with Joystiq: “It was weird and special to learn it that way, but I respect and trust (Phil) a lot, so that’s totally fair that he decided that and he has his reasons.”

In my personal opinion, I will say that I am a fan of Phil Fish, and have found myself agreeing with things that he’s said, and absolutely hating other statements that he’s said. I think he’s rude, almost a bit too much outspoken, and a bit harsh sometimes, but in the end he was a great developer. But, I also think that a lot of the hate he’s received makes sense, and was deserved for things that he’s stated in the past. But this time I believe that he didn’t deserve any of the strikes against him. He simply declined to answer questions about Microsoft’s decision to allow indie developers to self-publish on the Xbox One, and for that he received a 5 minute long rant, and then more personal attacks later on.

I agree with Cliff, I’ll miss you too, and it hurts to know that I won’t be seeing another one of your games. Take it easy Phil, and hopefully you’ll find happiness in whatever you do in the future.