May 132019
After Hideo Baba left Square Enix, we wondered what would happen to Project Prelude Rune – and it doesn’t look good.
The short teaser trailer shown amidst a flurry of other exciting news last September has been removed from Youtube. The website for Studio Istolia simply redirects to Square Enix’s main site, and its social media accounts are gone.
While it’s possible they’re rebranding Project Prelude Rune, it seems unfortunately likely that both it and the studio making it are no more.
Baba said his departure was part of “the change in Studio Istolia’s management policies,” which could mean plans to disband the studio were already in effect back then. On the other hand, they might have scrapped the game since he was no longer there to make it.
We hadn’t seen much from Project Prelude Rune, just some concept art and a few seconds of gameplay, but I was interested in it. Now we’ll never know what it could have been.
(Here’s hoping things go better for the other two mysterious JRPG projects we’ve seen little from, Atlus’s Project Re Fantasy and Monolith Soft’s unknown fantasy game.)
Now, today I was going to write up a review of a certain notoriously difficult RPG, but after seeing an article from Twisted Voxel on the fate of Project Prelude Rune, I decided to follow up on that first since we’d discussed the game in the past. Stay tuned on Wednesday for the intended review!
How do you feel about the cancellation of Project Prelude Rune? Do you think there is any chance of this game being revived in the future?
Update: Square Enix has now confirmed the cancellation of Project Prelude Rune and closure of Studio Istolia.
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