Yesterday was a rather odd evening for Square Enix, who had just publically revealed their fiscal year data. The moment their earnings report went live, all social media accounts, websites, and videos relating to Square's spinoff studio, Studio Istolia, had disappeared. This left the fate of the company's upcoming title, Project Prelude Rune, up in the air, as things looked bleak. The game was announced in early 2017, and was a high-budget AAA JRPG that was being led by Tales series producer Hideo Baba. A year and a half later, we received a very short teaser trailer, being the first look at gameplay and minor details about the game, outside of magazine screenshots and concept art. In March 2019, six months after no news, Hideo Baba had announced that he would be leaving Studio Istolia, putting the development of Project Prelude Rune into question. That brings us to today, where Square Enix revealed that the disappearance of any and all information relating to Studio Istolia and Project Prelude Rune was because the game had been canceled, and the studio behind it would be disbanded.

Following evaluation of various aspects of Project Prelude Rune, development of the title has been canceled. Studio Istolia is no longer in operation and we have been taking appropriate steps to assign studio staff to other projects within the Square Enix Group.

Thankfully, the team that was working on the project will not lose their jobs, and will instead be redistributed to various other Square Enix development studios.

Source

 

[CoolStarDood]

always a sad day when a studio dissolves

 

[Kioku]

always a sad day when a studio dissolves

Hopefully they find success elsewhere. Sucks when you lose a job due to circumstances out of your control...

 

[DANTENDO]

The game name sounded a bit shit anyway

 

[guisadop]

always sad to see potential good games go

 

[DANTENDO]

Hopefully they find success elsewhere. Sucks when you lose a job due to circumstances out of your control...

Didn't lose jobs says in article

 

[gbatempfan1]

Hideo Baba finally had the opportunity to pursue his vision on a new IP instead of having to bash the Tales of series into a powder, add water, and then mold it into whatever was thinking up there.

He knows how to do RPGs, he just never got the heart of Tales. You can watch his influence like cycles of the moon as it waxes and wains from Hearts to Xillia I&II to Zesteria to Berseria compared to the previous two flagship titles of the series: Graces & Vesperia.

Hopefully he'll find a way to make his own game instead of taking charge of somebody else's work.

 

[Arras]

always a sad day when a studio dissolves

Did this studio even make anything before this unreleased game?

 

[KingVamp]

I either forgot or didn't know this was even a thing.

Oh yeah, now I remember. The game that some people were comparing to Zelda.

 

[spotanjo3]

Why ? I think it is great. I would get it but its canceled ? That sucks!

 

[Ra1d]

The game name sounded a bit shit anyway

It wasn't the name of the game, it was the name of the project internally...

 

[Kioku]

Didn't lose jobs says in article

I guess that's true..

 

[DANTENDO]

It wasn't the name of the game, it was the name of the project internally...

Still a stupid project name then just not eye catching enough

 

[KingVamp]

To be fair, a lot of times the project name becomes the official name.

 

[chartube12]

Canceled to give the remaining funds to final fantasy 7 remake.

 

[CoolStarDood]

Canceled to give the remaining funds to final fantasy 7 remake.

to be fair, that might have actually happened

 

[Hells Malice]

That's too bad. The short trailer looked interesting afair. Oh well, there'll be other games.

 

[Deleted_413010]

Honestly nothing compares to Final Fantasy...nice try Square Enix

 

[Estriole]

Canceled to give the remaining funds to final fantasy 7 remake.

Or...... the project they made actually just a decoy... their real job until now was making assets for the new final fantasy 7 remake...

 

[kumikochan]

They shot themselves in the foot when Hideo Baba was one of the last good jrpg creators. Square Enix these days only care about games that are catered to the west. The only games they seem to be interested in now these days are hack and slash games, Tomb raider, hitman like games etc. FF15 was a Final fantasy game catered to the west and so is the new final fantasy 7 remake, taking everything what made that game great and turning it in to a generic hack and slash game