Last night was announced at E3 2017 with extreme excitement, before that excitement was cut short the same day by the reappearance of pro-Gamergate tweets made by creator Tim Soret in 2014.
The cinematic pixel art platform has been largely silent since then, but rumors began circulating this week that it would reappear at the Game Awards later this month. Not so, Soret said. “It will be shown next year, not before,” he tell PC Gamer.
Soret’s tweets from 2014 began being shared within hours of The Last Night’s appearance at Microsoft’s E3 conference in 2017. Soret apologized and Raw Fury publisher stand next to him while criticizing the tweets. Later that day, Soret personally apologized during the E3 PC Gaming show. “I’m embarrassed by some of the tweets I’ve made in the past. I want to apologize for those. They don’t represent who I am today, or what The Last Night is about.” I said.
Then nothing more of the game is displayed. Last year, publisher Raw Fury announced that they have agreed to part ways with the developers of The Last Night Odd Tales in 2018 and all publishing rights have now been returned. This is consistent with the tweet Soret done in 2018 says they will run into “major business, legal and funding issues” they can’t talk about and that they are actively raising funds.
In response to a question from PC Gamer, Soret said that the game’s appearance at this year’s Game Awards is “just a rumor”, and that they have no release date to announce. “What we do know is that for The Last Night’s return in 2022, it’s our mission to blow everyone away with the power and originality of our proposition.”
For all its beautiful artwork, it’s worth noting that it was never clear from the first trailers how The Last Night played. Its cyberpunk story about a “second class citizen” in a gambling world where people are defined “by what they consume” – like described on its Steam page – also raised eyebrows about what the game’s message might be given by Soret’s tweets.
Or maybe he’s matured, and maybe the game will be great. Interesting sidenote: Last Night’s 2017 trailers were released exactly one year after the phrase “milkshake duck” was coined.
