Earthblade Composer Lena Raine Releases Concept Album After Game’s Cancellation

Earthblade, the highly anticipated title from Celeste developer Extremely OK Games, was officially cancelled earlier this year, leaving fans disappointed after a brief tease at The Game Awards and sporadic blog updates.

The project, helmed by studio founder Maddy Thorson, came to an end due to an internal disagreement over the intellectual property rights of Celeste, as confirmed by Thorson in a public statement at the time.

Despite the project’s cancellation, Earthblade’s composer, Lena Raine, has released a concept album titled 'EARTHBLADE ~ Across the Bounds of Fate.' Available now on Bandcamp, the album features nine tracks that represent both conceptual and implemented music from the unreleased game.

Raine, known for her acclaimed work on Celeste, Chicory, and Deltarune, brings a dynamic soundscape inspired by legendary figures such as Vangelis, Joe Hisaishi—renowned for his work on Studio Ghibli’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind—and Yoko Kanno, composer for Cowboy Bebop. "Across the Bounds of Fate is less a traditional soundtrack and more a concept album," Raine explains in the album’s description.

She elaborates that the music was designed to be highly dynamic and to capture emotional progression, much in the spirit of her celebrated score for Celeste, but extending even further in creative ambition.

Raine acknowledges the challenge in arranging time-constrained musical pieces while striving to evoke the intended arc and atmosphere imagined for Earthblade. While Earthblade itself will not see a release on the Nintendo Switch, PC, or any platform, Raine’s music now stands as a testament to the vision the team had for the game.

The album runs for approximately 30 minutes, offering fans an evocative journey through what might have been the emotional landscape of Earthblade.

Raine also expresses hope of revisiting the musical themes and creative energy from Earthblade in future projects. Extremely OK Games, under Thorson’s direction, has returned to the prototyping phase, seeking to recapture the organic development process that led to its previous indie successes, Celeste and TowerFall.

As Thorson reflected in a January blog post, while the cancellation was difficult, there is a sense of relief within the team as they look to "rediscover game development." With Lena Raine’s concept album now accessible on Bandcamp, fans of video game music—and the indie scene at large—can experience a final piece of Earthblade’s world, ensuring the project’s creative spark lives on.

For those who appreciated Raine’s previous scores, this release is an essential listen and a poignant tribute to a promising project that, although never completed, left a lasting mark through its music.

Earthblade Lena Raine Extremely OK Games Celeste