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Sources suggest that Amazon Game Studios’ hero brawler Breakaway has been canned. Probably.
Kotaku reported sources claiming that Breakaway, Amazon Game Studios’ highest profile project, announced on September 29, 2016, was essentially cancelled, with the game on indefinite hiatus and developers moving on to other projects within the company.
Shortly after Kotaku published their article, Amazon themselves posted to the Breakaway website to confirm parts of the story, and maybe soften a few words. Cancelled is out this year, folks, but “indefinite hiatus?” That’s a nice, safe, alternative.
Jokes about the lexicon of game developers aside, Amazon’s announcement certainly sounds like they’re planning to retool the whole thing.
“As you know, Breakaway was in Public Alpha from June to the end of September,” the post says. “It’s thrilling to play and co-design the game with this fantastic community. Your passion is one of the reasons we believe so strongly in Breakaway.
“Over the course of the Alpha we received a lot of feedback from you that we’re taking to heart. In order to get it right, we’re letting our team take the time to iterate and evolve Breakaway’s core gameplay to deliver what you’ve asked for. We aren’t sure how long this will take, but we think it’s the right thing to do for the game, and you, the community.”
“We won’t be hosting Alpha matches during this time, but we still want to hear your ideas for how to improve the game, and we’ll share our ideas for your feedback.”
So, at the very least the game is going dark for a long while. It’s another blow for Amazon Game Studios who have struggled to find their audience, and the cancellation of Breakaway is another potential bump in the road for the studio, which had veteran designers Kim Swift and Clint Hocking on staff, before they left without having shipped anything.
Breakaway, which was planning to mix gameplay from Overwatch and Rocket League and have beefy options for Twitch integration. Here’s a trailer. For a game you’ll never get to play.
