The apocalypse has come early today for one Australian studio, just one week ahead of the launch of its debut game. Victorian developer Drop Bear Bytes, the team behind post-apocalyptic Australian RPG Broken Roads has been on a Twitter spree this morning after false reports circulated that the version for Nintendo Switch had been cancelled.
Scouring Twitter, it seems the first report came from outlet Gematsu, which has since updated its story, confirming the Switch version is still in development. In the hours since, however, many outlets have continued to run with the false cancellation news. As Gamerant reported confidently, “According to a new report from Gematsu, Drop Bear Bytes has confirmed that a Switch version of Broken Roads has been cancelled.”
Similarly, GoNintendo said in a since updated article “After waiting over 2 years to get Broken Roads on Switch, it’s incredibly disappointing to have it all end in cancellation. Even more frustrating is the fact that no reason for the cancellation was given”.
I know it’s Easter and a lot of places are working with reduced staff and various degrees of shut down, but it seems nobody ever bothered to check with the developers. This is the kind of mistake that shouldn’t be made so easily, nor be allowed to proliferate the way that it has. Bit of a bleak day for games media, and those outlets will have to take their lumps.
The dev team put out the below statement, their own rendition of the Mark Twain quote, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”:
On 22 March 2024, Drop Bear Bytes adjusted the game’s release date, and you can dive into the dust-strewn tactical shenanigans of post-apocalyptic down under from 10 April, 2024 on Steam, GoG, Playstation, Xbox then. The Nintendo Switch version, which, again, has not been cancelled, will follow in due course.
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