Square Enix cancelled an unannounced project that was being headed up by Heart Machine’s Teddy Dief, one of the designers on the indie darling and Kickstarted project, Hyper Light Drifter.

The news comes courtesy of a post from Dief that he made on his official website, where he explained…

“I have decided to leave my position as Creative Director at Square Enix Montreal, effective last Friday. Because this was such a dream role for me, I feel it bears explaining why I’ve given it up, especially to those who have supported and encouraged me.

 

“My team were working on a game that I deeply wish we could have shared with you. But the business strategy of the studio shifted, and our project was sadly no longer compatible. Thankfully, the talented team remain employed and valued, assigned to other projects. Because of this shift and the loss of our project, I no longer feel this is the place for me to pursue the type of work I aspire to make – the avenues of storytelling in game design I’ve been trying to explore in my career.”

Basically, Dief didn’t want to transition to working on the factory-style games that most AAA publishers churn out.

However, before shedding tears over whatever project it was that was cancelled by Square Enix, keep in mind that some of the staff working on the project might seem familiar to some people who followed #GamerGate. Most notably being anti-#GamerGate journalist Cara Ellison, who was the lead writer on Dief’s project.

You might remember Ellison from such classic hits as having conflicts of interest with Porpentine, Nina Freeman, Christine Love, Anna Anthropy, and the developers from Gone Home, as detailed complete with citations over on This Is Video Games.

Of course there’s really no telling what the game might have been given that Dief nor Square made any information available for it, but it likely would have been similar in tone to Ellison’s own political affiliations, which consistently found their way into the writings at outlets such as Kotaku. Eurogamer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Eurogamer, Vice and The Guardian.