Q-Games casts PixelJunk Dungeons' future in doubt

Q-Games has dropped a heavy hint that PixelJunk Dungeons may never see light of day as a standalone game, saying that the top-down dungeon crawler's elements will show themselves in future PixelJunk projects.

"What PixelJunk Dungeons was and whether or not it comes out as PixelJunk Dungeons – the ideas we were talking about will be present in all the games we make from now on," PR and recruitment head Duncan Flett told VG247 in an interview published today.

Dungeons was announced at GDC 2008, where studio boss Dylan Cuthbert showed an early sketch alongside PixelJunk Eden. Since then, PixelJunk Shooter has released to critical acclaim.

PixelJunk Racers and Monsters director Rhod Broadbent explained that Shooter's development pulled the company away from Dungeons work.

"We have a lot of ideas going on at once and during GDC 2008 when we announced Dungeons, we were all really excited about that," he said.

"And we’re still really excited about what we announced then and what we showed. But then Shooter came along and there was a huge rush of, 'Yeah! Shooter’s what we’re going to do now!'

"Which direction we go in next is not public knowledge, I’m afraid."

PixelJunk Shooter director Shouichi Tominaga cast yet more doubt on Dungeons ever making it out, seemingly saying future development in the series is still evolving.

"The more we make these PixelJunk games, the more we learn – the bigger our world gets," he added.

"So, in that way, you never really know what’s coming next."

PixelJunk Shooter was released in December as a PS3 exclusive.