Wavedash Games Lays Off Majority of its Staff, Winds Down Icons Development

Out of the blue, game development startup Wavedash Games has announced in a new blog post that it has had to make the unfortunate decision to lay off the majority of its staff, signaling an abrupt end to the development of their inaugural game Icons: Combat Arena.

This announcement comes mere weeks after Wavedash revealed the games 8th playable character, the diminutive witch Ezzie, in a sponsored video put out by YouTube content creator Alpharad.

Rather than cease development altogether, Wavedash will push out a final ‘definitive’ update to the game. This will allow fans to continue to enjoy the game and will grant access to the new character.

Last May, Wavedash had secured $6 million in funding and had attracted top tier development talent from studios like Blizzard, EA and Riot Games, as well as from the popular fan made Super Smash Bros. mod Project M.

The game, which was envisioned as the first “free-to-play” entry in the competitive platform-fighter genre, is still in Steam Early Access. It has struggled to find its footing, receiving mixed reactions from players on everything from it’s art design to monetization strategies.

Still, this announcement comes as a surprise to many, and is hot on the heels of a similar shutdown announcement by the prolific development studio Telltale Games.

We’ll keep you up to date as we continue to learn more about the future of Icons.

Author’s Note: Were you a fan of Icons: Combat Arena? Will you continue to play the game despite the impending end of development? Sound off in the comments below.

 

Funny, I actually got called a "racist" multiple times by fanboys on their subreddit for calling out their blatant forced diversity thing, despite having drawn a more attractive version of their Ashani who looked more like Shinobu from NMH as a pitch for them... Glad I'm not the only one who caught onto that though.

Welcome to 2018!! Anytime you don't support some forced diversity nonsense it makes you a racist!!

 

The reason people think Ashanti is forced/unnatural diversity is probably partly because Wavedash Games feels the need to post diversity as a value on their own their website right under a giant picture of Ashanti: "Embrace Diversity Seek to include rather than exclude. From diversity of playstyles to diversity of players, growing the pie leads to better games and better people." I don't see why game devs need to post a commitment to diversity, but I think doing so either takes or strongly suggests a political stance.

Edit: Thought I should clarify that I don't mean to say liking or valuing diversity suggests a political stance, but embracing or supporting it does I believe. If you actively embrace or support, that sounds like you're trying to nurture and grow it, or get more of it. That's where it gets political. Like are you using affirmative action, or are you thinking in equity terms looking for equal outcome and doing the whole treating people differently in order to treat them equally type thing.