Dust: An Elysian Tail developers Dean "Noogy" Dodrill and Alex Kain announced during their PAX East panel today that the indie platformer, previously exclusive to Xbox Live Arcade, is on its way to Steam, with a release date possibly as soon as April.
The duo also teased Dust 2, though they offered nothing concrete.
Dodrill created Dust: An Elysian Tail, the game that made our own Mike Fahey extra proud of his own right forearm, almost single-handedly. The furry-inspired game was admired for its fluid animation and surprisingly deep combat—even more so for having been created by essentially one dude.
I've reached out to Dodrill to see if he can share anything more concrete, but given the guy just finished a PAX East panel, I imagine he's getting drunk somewhere and not paying attention to his email.
UPDATE: Dodrill sent me the following statement to clarify and expand on some things:
So right now I'm targeting some time late April, but it sort of depends on how fast things can move through the system. The build has actually been fairly complete for some time, it's just a matter of working in those last Steam specific things and working through testing/cert/localization.
Most of these last few months have been about making the game as PC friendly as possible, including support for numerous visual and control options. Mouse and keyboard players should be very happy, alongside standard gamepad players. Keyboard only is also an option. The game will be published by Microsoft Studios, and I will NOT be implementing GFW. Also, the game looks amazing at 1080p.
After the Steam port of Dust:AET, I'm working on a completely new IP unrelated to Elysian Tail. I probably won't have much to share for the first year of development, however it's my plan not to spend 3 and a half years on another game :)
As for Dust 2, it is something I want to do. I have some grand ambitions and somewhat drastic changes that I would like to implement, but it'll be a while before I have much more to share. I do love the characters though, and look forward to continuing their adventure.