According to industry insider Shinobi602, development of the now-cancelled Scalebound was so taxing that director Hideki Kamiya had to take time off for mental health concerns.

Anticipation had been steadily brewing for Scalebound after its exciting reveal at Microsoft’s E3 keynote presentation three years ago, but all those dreams of playing around in a fantastical world filled with dragons and Sorcerian-style monsters suddenly came crashing down on January 9, 2017, when Microsoft officially cancelled Scalebound. Needless to say, this is far from good news for everyone, but if the word of a well-known industry insider is to be believed, it appears that the game's development team, Platinum Games, was suffering quite a bit at the time of Microsoft's announcement.

Previously, sources revealed that Scalebound ran into development problems due to several members of the development team taking month-long leaves of absence, including game director Hideki Kamiya. However, according to a new post at the Neogaf forums from well-known industry insider Shinobi602, the development process was apparently so taxing that these absences of leave were health-related, particularly for Kamiya who had to "take time off for his mental health".

This reveal from Shinobi602 should be taken with a grain of salt, but given the forum user's history of being quite accurate with their insider info (such as revealing that The Last of Us 2 would be unveiled at the PlayStation Experience 2016 event), this doesn't come as too big of a surprise considering the sudden announcement of Scalebound's cancellation.

It is unfortunate that Scalebound was cancelled due to such circumstances and with reports that development of the project has ceased completely, it is not yet clear whether the game could be revived at some point in the future. But given that Microsoft have started removing all Scalebound trailers from YouTube and Platinum Games currently also working on a number of other games, such as NieR: Automata, it is likely that the development team have already been moved to the studio's other projects.

With Scalebound being one of 2017's most anticipated games, this cancellation is a bitter blow for everyone as not only does this mean the scrapping of years of work by Platinum Games, but it also thins out Microsoft's slate of upcoming Xbox One exclusives, meaning that there is even more at stake for the new Xbox One console Project Scorpio to be a success,

Looking at the situation from a positive point of view, hopefully this will allow Hideki Kamiya and the rest of the former Scalebound development team to get some much needed rest. Perhaps once the director is well again, he could revisit some of his prior works, such as the dormant Bayonetta and Okami franchises.

Originally planned for release on Xbox One and PC in 2017, Scalebound is now cancelled and has ceased development.