The creators of Celeste are working on a new “2D exploration action game” with Secret Of Mana Vibes

Very OK Games

It’s been three years since Celeste, the pixel-perfect platformer first came out. Since then, the people who created it have banded together to create an entirely new studio – Extremely OK Games – and have worked hard on what comes next.

Today that question finally has an answer: Earthblade, a “2D exploration action game” set in a “seamless pixel art world”, with the entire Celeste team working together to create a worthy follow-up scheduled for “20XX”.

The reveal on Twitter wasn’t a full trailer, or even an early screenshot, but instead something EXOK calls a “vibe reveal,” with a beautiful keyart, the title and Lena Raine’s music all setting the tone. Old-school JRPG fans will be extreme happy with the atmosphere, reminiscent of Secret of Mana and cross-legged days at a friend’s house on a rainy Saturday, playing video games until your mom comes to pick you up.

Even that title – “Earthblade” – emphatically evokes Earthbound, and the kind of games that drew a lot of inspiration from even old-fashioned pick-your-own-adventure and fantasy adventure books.

Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry, Amora B and Pedro Medeiros and Heidy Motta make up the EXOK team – all of whom have worked on Celeste and some on Towerfall as well. The audio design is provided by Vancouver-based studio Power Up Audio, whose work you may know from Cadence of Hyrule, Darkest Dungeon and Super Meat Boy Forever, while the musical score is all done by Lena Raine, who also provides the music for Celeste, and wrote the music for Minecraft’s Nether Update. A whole list of credits!

While there isn’t much more to see or say about Earthblade until they showcase some of the art, we’re quite interested in how the game will evolve the ideas and design behind Celeste and Towerfall into something more like a traditional RPG . For now, we’ll have to hope it gets to Switch … which it likely will, given Celeste’s popularity on the platform.

Is this the sequel to Celeste you were hoping for, or is it a surprising new direction? Let us know what you think about Earthblade in the comments!