Terraria: Otherworld Has Been Cancelled

Indiana-based developer Re-Logic has officially announced that Terraria: Otherworld has been cancelled.

The news comes via Terraria's official forums, where the developer stated the decision stemed from the fact the title is not only behind schedule, but far from the team's vision of the project.

On said forums, the developer writes:

"As you all know from when we first announced the game a long while ago – and as we repeated in our subsequent posts - Re-Logic's focus has and always will be on delivering complete and quality game experiences to our fanbase. Just to underscore it once more, this means that we will not compromise game quality for speed to market or for any other reasons within our control. Our team has a clear vision for this game – one that we shared with all of you with much shared excitement – and, in spite of all of our efforts, the current state of the game remains equal parts far from that vision and beyond behind schedule from our initial planning when we shared Otherworld with all of you three years ago. Progress has absolutely been made during that time – but unfortunately, a very thorough status review of the game versus its intended design showed both the Re-Logic and 505/Pipeworks teams that things were quite a bit further away from the finish line than we had imagined. Taking the massive amount of work that would be remaining to complete along with the extensive time it would take to get that done, and how that would greatly interfere with the pursuit of other projects on behalf of Re-Logic – it becomes clear that this leaves things in a very undesirable state.

"As a result, we have made the decision to terminate development of Terraria: Otherworld.

"We sincerely thank both of our external development teams for their hard work on the game, but at some point, we have to be honest with ourselves and realize that Otherworld simply is never going to reach its potential in any sort of reasonable time or fashion.

"We know that the cancellation of Terraria: Otherworld will not be happy news to anyone. It is FAR from a happy moment for us either, when we look at all the time/effort/resources that we poured into the project. However, we feel strongly that we owe it to our community and loyal customers to uphold the standards that both you and we expect and to focus on delivering the best possible games that we can for you all to play. Come whatever may, quality is simply not something we are willing to compromise on to make a quick buck. It may be painful in the short term, but our sincere hope is that it will pay off for everyone in the long term in regard to our future games. T:OW will never come to pass, but its lessons learned and ideas generated will absolutely yield dividends for everyone."

Deeper into the forum post, the developer reflects that it should have never spoken publicly about the game as early-on as it did. Upon this realization, it pledged to be "far more judicious" about sharing information on projects in the future.

Further, it acknowledged that outsourcing – especially for such a critical title for the company (even if only for a part) – was a mistake. Going forward, focus for the core development will be more "inward" and utilize the team's own people.

As for what's next, Re-Logic noted it has possession of the game (design, code, art, sounds, etc.) as it exists today, and that it still has a ton of amazing ideas it could work into future titles.

Additionally, active development of Terraria continues un-affected, with 1.3.6 still in active development. The developer assures fans that it has been working tirelessly on the next "PC wave." As for the Terraria's console, Nintendo Switch, and mobile ports, those also remain in the works.

As you may remember, last year Otherworld was notably cancelled and then restarted, with a full examination of the title from top to bottom. It was first announced three years ago.