After three years, the team behind the indie platform fighter Icons: Combat Arena is getting much, much smaller.
Wavedash Games released a statement on October 5th, 2018, announcing that the majority of the development team was being laid off, with only a small handful of people staying on to make final changes and fixes to the company’s sole product Icons: Combat Arena.
Sadly, we have fallen short of our goals – but we feel immensely fortunate to have had the chance to bring Icons into existence, together.
A large number of the developers who formed up the Wavedash team had previously worked on Project: M, a gameplay mod of Super Smash Bros. Brawl that change the physics of the game so they were closer to Super Smash Bros. Melee. They also added a ton of music, stages, and characters to the game before abruptly shutting down development on December 1st, 2015.
Icons: Combat Arena was the team’s attempt at continuing the Project: M legacy while creating an entirely original artstyle and simplistic approach to make the game fun, accessible, and worth investing in. The game was specifically designed to appeal to the hardcore audience of Super Smash Bros, and the game’s artstyle resembling Overwatch was no small hint that the team had big esports aspirations for the title.
To the entire Wavedash team who worked on Icons: Thank you. We are so fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with you. We’re committed to doing everything we can to help as you look to new endeavors.
Unfortunately, the game received mixed to negative reviews overall, with lots of criticism going towards the small cast of characters and stages, the lack of single player content, and the game being “free to play” but with most of the characters being locked, and the only way to unlock them is by grinding for dozens if not hundreds of hours, or buying a package on Steam.
The remaining members will continue to polish up the game in preparation for the new character, Ezzie, who was slated to drop soon. The character will still be made available in due time, and there’s no plans to remove Icons: Combat Arena from Steam anytime soon.
