Amazon Game Studios’ Breakaway officially canned

Breakaway, which was meant to be Amazon Game Studios’ big debut title, has been cancelled, the developers announced.

The hero brawler was put on hold last October, and the team has now confirmed on Reddit that Breakaway will not see the light of day: “Since our last announcement, we have worked to implement community feedback and iterate on Breakaway’s core gameplay. While we have developed many ideas and made a lot of progress, we are also setting a very high bar for ourselves. In spite of our efforts, we didn’t achieve the breakthrough that made the game what we all hoped it could be. After a lot of soul searching, the team decided to focus on new ideas. As a result, Breakaway is no longer in active development.”

The post continued: “We remain exceptionally proud of the team’s work, and feel privileged to have been a part of such a dedicated and enthusiastic community. We will reach out to this channel as soon as we have news to share regarding our new projects, and if a thunderbolt of inspiration strikes that leads us back to Breakaway, you’ll be the first to know.”

Back when the game’s hiatus was announced in October, there were already strong rumours of its cancellation, with Kotaku reporting that Breakaway was “essentially cancelled.” Amazon then confirmed part of Kotaku’s report, stating that “in order to get it right” the team would “ take the time to iterate and evolve Breakaway’s core gameplay.” The announcement then added that the team was not “sure how long this will take.”

Breakaway was supposed to be the lead title of Amazon Game Studios’ debut lineup, alongside Crucible and New World, all announced in September 2016. We played Breakaway at Gamescom last year, with executive producer Matt Priestley telling us about his plans for the title on Twitch.