Fez has become a big hit, as the downloadable title taps into the old-school platformer vibe that has been missing from modern games. Those wishing to play the sequel, however, will not be able to do so on either the Xbox 360 or the Xbox One, as the series creator has gone to Twitter to announce that he is not going to be making games for Microsoft anymore.
Fez's creator, Phil Fish, first spoke to Polygon about the upcoming second game in the series, and when asked what platforms Fez 2 would be coming to, he simply replied "Not Xbox." He later clarified this statement on his Twitter through a series of messages:
"Thing is the patch is irrelevant to the situation. I would develop for xbone if they'd let me. but they won't. THAT's the fucking story."
"I'm independent and i don't have a publisher. I can't release games on xbone."
"I'd love to release my games on every platform, but microsoft is making it impossible for me to release on theirs. It's a shame."
This outbursts stems from an incident regarding a patch for the original Fez to fix several bugs in the game. This patch ended up corrupting save files, however, and Microsoft pulled the patch. Then, Microsoft demanded that Fish pay for certification a second time in order for the game to be fixed. An infuriated Fish decided to leave the game as is, and thus the rift between developer and Microsoft began. In addition, the Xbox One will require indie developers to have a publisher in order to put games on the Xbox Live Arcade, something many small development teams can't afford.
It seems as though Fez 2 will most likely make its way to gamers through Steam or perhaps the PlayStation Network. Either way it spells bad news for Microsoft's already frail reputation among indie developers.