Ten Years Later, Owlboy Is Finally Coming Out

The first post aboutOwlboy on evil-billionaire-proof Overwatch fansite Kotaku is from the year 2008. A certain Luke Plunkett tells me there are even older ones that didn’t survive a server change that same year. It’s now 2016, and the gorgeous adventure-platformer about a boy who is an owl (or perhaps the other way around) is finally about to come out.

The game, which never had a release date previously, is now scheduled for fall 2016 on Steam. Apparently that’ll be narrowed down quite a bit further at PAX. To celebrate, developer D-Pad released a new trailer. It’s a looker:

“You want sprites?” the man asked a disinterested internet that thought it’d Seen Everything. “I will give you sprites.” And then for ten years he sat, immovable, and carved details into stone. Then he poured his own blood into each etching, until his body was but a wrinkled husk. Finally, he emerged. “Here are some sprites,” he said.

OK, but why did it actually take so long? Well, for one developer D-Pad Studio ended up working on other projects as Owlboy was laboriously birthed from its collective womb. The game itself has also undergone some pretty serious changes. D-Pad explained:

“Owlboy has been in production for nearly 10 years, starting as a hobby project. Shortly thereafter, we quit our jobs to focus on the game full-time. After we released Owlboy’s first demo in 2011, we decided to redesign the core mechanics and put more work into ensuring that the game was worth the wait.”

And now, after multiple eras of indie game development, not to mention presidencies, recessions, wars, coups, and the entire run of my favorite TV show, 30 Rock, it’s finally coming out. FINALLY.