Matt Makes Games’ Celeste will be receiving its long-awaited Chapter 9: Farewell DLC today. It’s a free update which adds over 100 new levels and an entirely new story that takes place after the base game. Now that the update is more or less done, are there any plans for a sequel in the future?
Speaking to IGN via email, director/designer Matt Thorson said that the team isn’t really looking to make a sequel right now. “Maybe in the future we’ll change our minds, but right now we don’t know how we’d do a sequel justice. And besides, we’re way more interested in making something new for our next full release.”
Thorson noted that the game is close to hitting one million units sold since releasing in January 2018. The success has “really given us space to create on our own terms for the near future” like releasing Chapter 9 for free. Otherwise, it’s “crazy” think that such a thing should be happening.
As Thorson explains, “First of all, we really should be charging for it” and he added that they “don’t like setting expectations that expansions of this size should be free.” He then stated that, “We want to be clear to our audience that we’re only able to release this for free because we’re in a very fortunate position right now, and that this really isn’t a reasonable thing to expect from any developer, including us, in the future.”
So essentially, don’t expect major expansion-like content from the team to be free in the future. Why is Chapter 9 free at all? Thorson noted that charging players would “force us to approach it as a new ‘product’, which would constrain us in some ways that didn’t feel right.” Still, even if Celeste isn’t seeing tons of free updates like many other games today, it’s good to see such substantial content added at this stage.
Celeste is currently available for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. What’s next for Thorson and Extremely OK Games? The developer’s next game is “not ready to be revealed yet so for now we want to ask everyone to be patient” but we can’t wait to see what they have in store. Stay tuned in the meantime for more information on Celeste Chapter 9: Farewell.
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