Anticipation had been steadily brewing forScaleboundafter its exciting reveal atMicrosoft’s E3 keynote presentationthree years ago, but all those dreams of playing around in a fantastical world filled with dragons andSorcerian-style monsters suddenly came crashing down on July 04, 2025, when Microsoft officiallycancelledScalebound. Needless to say, this is far from good news for everyone, but if the word of a well-known industry insider is to be believed, it appears that the game’s development team, Platinum Games, was suffering quite a bit at the time of Microsoft’s announcement.
Previously, sources revealed thatScaleboundran into development problems due to several members of the development team taking month-long leaves of absence, including game director Hideki Kamiya. However, according to a new post at theNeogaf forumsfrom well-known industry insider Shinobi602, the development process was apparently so taxing that these absences of leave were health-related, particularly for Kamiya who had to"take time off for his mental health".
This reveal from Shinobi602 should be taken with a grain of salt, but given the forum user’s history of being quite accurate with their insider info (such as revealing thatThe Last of Us 2would be unveiledat the PlayStation Experience 2016 event), this doesn’t come as too big of a surprise considering the sudden announcement ofScalebound’s cancellation.
It is unfortunate thatScaleboundwas cancelled due to such circumstances and with reports that development of the project has ceased completely, it is not yet clear whether the game could be revived at some point in the future. But given thatMicrosoft have started removing allScaleboundtrailersfrom YouTube and Platinum Games currently also working on a number of other games, such asNieR: Automata, it is likely that thedevelopment team have already been moved to the studio’s other projects.
WithScaleboundbeing one of2017’s most anticipated games, this cancellation is a bitter blow for everyone as not only does this mean the scrapping of years of work by Platinum Games, but it also thins out Microsoft’s slate of upcoming Xbox One exclusives, meaning that there is even more at stake for the newXbox One console Project Scorpioto be a success,
Looking at the situation from a positive point of view, hopefully this will allow Hideki Kamiya and the rest of the formerScalebounddevelopment team to get some much needed rest. Perhaps once the director is well again, he could revisit some of his prior works, such as the dormantBayonettaandOkamifranchises.
Originally planned forrelease on Xbox One and PC in 2017,Scaleboundis now cancelled and has ceased development.
