Only Up!, the Steam game that emerged as one of several recent streaming sensations this year and took off on Twitch, has now been pulled from Steam entirely by the creator. According to the developer, the game cause them “a lot of stress,” and they want to put Only Up! behind them now. The game itself still appears to be playable at this time, but only by those who’ve already purchased it in the past since the option to buy it has been totally removed from Steam with no indication based on the creator’s comments that it’s coming back anytime soon.
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As a refresher, Only Up! is the game that you’ve probably seen on social media even if you haven’t played it yourself. It consist of a main character, Jackie, jumping and scrambling upwards over different objects and obstacles largely comprised of various assets placed at different points in the game to create a skyward obstacle course. Players are timed on how long it takes them to reach the summit, and while beating the game was something that players achieved over and over again, finding new shortcuts and the viral reactions of content creators plummeting from great heights were what kept the game so popular. It boasted average Steam stats in terms of how many people were actually playing it, but like other flash-in-the-pan games, it popped off in a big way on Twitch.
Only Up! Creator’s Announcement
The developer of Only Up! alerted players to the game’s removal from Steam via a “small update” post which really turned out to be rather a large announcement. The update included some fixes for the game since it’s still playable, sure, but the much bigger part of the update buried under the title of “Game’s future” was that it was removed from Steam.
The full statement from the developer can be found verbatim below.
“I’m a solo developer and this game is my first experience in Gamedev, a game I did for creativity, to test myself, and where I made a lot of mistakes,” the creator said. “The game has kept me under a lot of stress all these months. Now I want to put the game behind me. And yes. the game won’t be available in the steam store soon, that’s what I decided myself. What I need now is peace of mind and healing. I plan to take a pause, and continue my education in game design and further with new experience and knowledge to direct my energies to my next game with the working title ‘Kith’ – it will be a new experience and a new concept with realism, a completely different genre and setting, and the emphasis is on cinematography. This time I hope the project will be created by a small team. This is a challenging project on which I want to significantly improve my skills in game design.
Can You Still Play Only Up!?
For now, it looks like you can still play Only Up! on Steam if you had the game previously. Its current Steam stats show that there are indeed people playing it right now, and it’s being streamed on Twitch, but like most games of the month such as Only Up!, its Twitch stats are a fraction of what they were before.
No details of note have been shared on the creator’s next game yet, though it sounds like Kith will not be like Only Up! beyond being made by the same person.
