A series of tweets made by FuturLab, the studio behind 2D shoot-em-up game Velocity 2X, details the struggle of trying to find a publisher to sign a sequel despite millions of players having enjoyed the first game.
The studio mentions its already working on “the bells and whistles sequel” to Velocity 2X, titled Velocity Supernova, but notes that the upcoming Switch port is presumably the last hope it can convince publishers to back the sequel.
The first tweet describes how Velocity 2X was met with success with the PlayStation 4 and Vita versions, which were then released for free through PlayStation Plus. FuturLab tweets this was “great for downloads (well into the millions)” but the presence of a large player-base wasn’t enough for publishers, who “want to see actual unit sales.”
The physical version of Velocity 2X for PS4 and Vita was published by Badland Games, but FuturLab describes it as a “very public disaster”, saying “we will likely never see another dime from it.”
The Steam version, published by Activision’s Sierra label, launched during the same weekend as Windows 10, which introduced a game-breaking bug for Nvidia graphics cards that “took us a year to fix”. As a result, the game did not do well on Steam.
3. #Velocity2X on Steam was published by Sierra/Activision on the same weekend as Windows 10 arrived, creating a game-breaking bug for NVidia cards that took us a year to fix. It therefore flopped on Steam.
— FuturLab @ Gamescom (@FuturLab) August 20, 2018
For the Switch version, FuturLab is collaborating with Curve Studios, and while FuturLab admits it could have self-published on the console, it hopes that a success on Switch will convince Curve to sign and publish Velocity Supernova.
Although Curve has not announced a release date for Velocity 2X for the Switch, FuturLab emphasizes that this is “probably your last chance to see a fully deserving sequel happen.”