Xbox Series X Game Cancelled After Developer Reveals “Nightmare” Experience

An Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S game has been cancelled ahead of its release, with the developer citing a “nightmare” experience trying to get the game ported to the pair of Xbox consoles. The game in question is called HAAK, a side-scrolling platformer meets action game that debuted back in 2020 via Steam Early Access, before releasing fully in 2022 via PC and Nintendo Switch. A PS5 port is confirmed to be coming in the future. In addition to a PS5 version, the game was also supposed to be coming to Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, but this is no longer the plan. 

Over on social media platform X, developer Blingame relayed word that the Xbox version is no longer in the works because it simply can not get the game through certification on Xbox, blaming Microsoft for the issue. 

“Thank you very much for your help and attention,” reads the statement on X. “However, during the process of getting our game on Xbox, we encountered numerous obstacles. What seemed like a simple procedure turned into a nightmare due to many bugs in the Microsoft Partner Center, preventing us from successfully completing account registration. Even Microsoft’s Support service system had bugs, making it impossible to initiate inquiries about our issues. This is simply unbelievable for developers. We informed ID@Xbox about our predicament, but they were powerless to help as it apparently falls outside their scope of responsibility and seems to be a Microsoft issue.”

The statement continues: In reality, porting the Xbox version of our game would have taken less than two weeks, but we spent over 14 months trying to ‘apply for game publication’ and ‘complete Microsoft Partner identity registration.’ This experience has been terrible because we can feel the enthusiasm from the Xbox community players, yet we struggle to resolve the problems at hand. Although we very much want to share HAAK’s adventure story with more players, our development funds are extremely tight, and we can’t afford to wait any longer. As a result, we’ve ultimately decided to abandon thenXbox platform release. We deeply regret this outcome, but we’ve truly done our best.”

At the moment of publishing, Xbox has not commented on the situation. We don’t expect this to change for a handful of reasons, but if it does, we will be sure to update the story accordingly. 

As for the game itself, for those unfamiliar, HAAK was released back in 2022. It doesn’t have any Metacritic data, but on Steam, 90 percent of 2,345 user reviews rate the game positively, giving it a “Very Positive” rating. This is the second-highest rating a game can ear on Steam. In other words, it appears Xbox fans are set to miss out on a quality side-scroller.