When a veteran like Ron Gilbert, the mind behind Monkey Island, can’t get a 2D RPG inspired by Zelda and Diablo off the ground, it raises uncomfortable questions about where the industry is heading. After more than three decades in game development, he now openly admits that his latest idea is dead: publishers wouldn’t back it, and he refuses to fall back on a crowdfunding model he no longer trusts.

Gilbert has been shaping video games for over 30 years, mainly through story-driven adventure titles, yet this time he wanted to step away from his comfort zone. The now-canceled RPG was conceived as a 2D project that mixed action, exploration, and small-town routine, with clear nods to Zelda and the loot-focused design of Diablo. He spent months pitching the concept and trying to move the production forward, but in the end, he simply had to pull the plug.

The game was first shown, in a very limited way, last year, and beyond a few early glimpses, almost nothing concrete was ever shown to the public. In the meantime, Gilbert released Death by Scrolling last October, a smaller project he directed, designed, and programmed himself. The canceled RPG would have followed more in the footsteps of Thimbleweed Park and his older work, with a deliberately old-school 2D presentation and a small town acting as a hub where players could live, prepare, and gear up before venturing into the wider world.

The Support Offers Were “Horrible”

In an interview with Ars Technica, Gilbert said that the core problem came down to funding. No publisher was willing to support the project under conditions he considered fair, and he freely admits he doesn’t have the personal resources to finance a full open-world production on his own. The proposals that did land on his desk were, in his own blunt description, “horrible”. On top of that, he believes a consciously retro art style is a handicap in a market obsessed with safe investments, high return,s and projects that can be translated cleanly into business forecasts.

He also looked back on his earlier experiences with Kickstarter and similar platforms, but he no longer sees them as a realistic way out. In his view, crowdfunding is now “practically dead” as a method of paying for game development. Gilbert is sharply critical of an industry that increasingly relies on data models and analytic tools to decide which games get the green light, a mentality that, he argues, leads to interchangeable line-ups and squeezes out the kind of creative risk-taking that once defined the indie scene.

Even so, the work poured into the project has not been completely lost. Some of the artwork created for the canceled RPG has already been recycled into Death by Scrolling, his most recent release. What seems to frustrate Gilbert most is that today a project’s visibility often depends on a developer’s willingness to perform on camera and build a personal brand, something that doesn’t fit his personality and that he has little interest in embracing.

Source: 3djuegos