Hideki Kamiya personally apologizes over Twitter to Scalebound fans for the game's cancellation and denies rumors of his alleged mental health issues.

Following the news a few days ago that development on Scalebound has officially ceased, game director Hideki Kamiya has now personally apologized for the cancellation via Twitter, saying he was "very sorry to everyone who was looking forward to this game." Scalebound was set to be the next big thing in action-RPGs until it was hit hard by several problems, not the least of which was the months-long absence of its director, allegedly due to Kamiya's mental health issues.

The news of the cancellation was unexpected, yet not entirely surprising: initially set to come out in 2016, Scalebound was delayed until this year because the developers wished to make good on their "ambitious vision." That Kamiya is ambitious can be seen from his earlier work, like Bayonetta 2, yet the wish to do as much as possible with a game can often lead to feature creep, which has been the death knell for many games before Scalebound and will likely remain so for many that come after.

What exactly is behind it will likely remain a mystery for a while longer, but Scalebound's cancellation was met with dismay by fans who saw their chance to do battle alongside dragons in a world of swords and sorcery gone forever. This outpouring of digital grief is probably the reason Kamiya decided to apologize personally in his early-morning tweet.

Right after he sent the apologetic message, Kamiya also for the first time reacted to the news of his alleged mental health issues, roundly denying that he took time off for that reason. In fact, Kamiya pokes fun at the notion, suggesting that whatever rumors were swirling did not reflect the actual situation at Platinum Games.

The news that his absence was due to stress over the taxing development schedule of Scalebound was first leaked on the NeoGAF forums, though where exactly forum user Shinobi602 got his information remains unclear. The reason Kamiya took such long breaks as often as he did is, at time of writing, still unknown.

Whatever the reason for Kamiya being gone for such long stretches, one of the most anticipated games of 2017 has already been taken off the slate within two weeks of the start of the new year. Though some may see it as a poor omen for things to come, here's hoping that Scalebound is the only major cancellation from this year's release list and this will be the last apology gamers will have to read for quite some time.