What started as an unofficial My Little Pony fighting game over a decade ago managed to evolve into something more, but it seems that too is going to be coming to an end.
Developers Mane6 and publisher Modus Games recently announced that Them’s Fightin’ Herds is going to be ending active development sooner than anticipated, including the cancelation of the crowdfunded Story Mode — and unsurprisingly led to backlash from fans and backers.
The team shared an update to their Steam store page and community Discord for the game where they discuss the future of Them’s Fightin’ Herds and say what players were hoping to not hear.
After giving an overview of the third DLC character Nidra, Mane6 also revealed the fourth and final addition to the Season 1 Pass being Baihe and presumably the game’s only season.
“As we look forward to the release of Nidra and Baihe, let’s talk about what comes next,” reads the official update. “After the Season 1 Pass is complete, we will be ceasing active development on TFH. We will still be able to release small patches to address game-breaking bugs, but no new content will be produced. Unfortunately, that includes Story Mode.
Story Mode has always been an ambitious feature and one we truly desired to implement. We know how much our fans have been looking forward to Story Mode chapters, and we hope you understand how much we looked forward to working on and releasing them.”
Man, what? Story mode is why I bought the game, it was half of the point of the project to me. The fact that it was just suffering in limbo for years only to get canned blows. What was the point of the Modus purchase if they couldn’t help you finish the game?
— Sage (@SageWaterDragon) November 22, 2023
So while they did release chapter one and plan on putting out what work they have done on chapter two, it sounds like that’s going to be it for the game.
This led to unhappy owners to take to the Steam reviews and turn the recent ratings from Very Positive to Mostly Negative as well as voicing their complaints on social media and the original Indiegogo page.
Story Mode was the final stretch goal for in their crowdfunding campaign asking for $560,000 and ended up receiving a total of $586,346 from backers.
That ended all the way back in 2017 with the game eventually leaving early access on PC in 2020 and then consoles finally just over a year ago.
Mane6 was purchased by Modus Games in 2022 as well, which had fans hopeful that meant the fighting game would continue to receive regular funding from the publisher, but that apparently is no longer the case.
As to whether it was the developer or publisher who ultimately decided to pull the plug on this project spanning over a decade, we may never truly know — though many are probably going to have their assumptions.
It has left potentially over 10,000 backers and even more thousands of players feeling like they quite literally did not get what they paid for upwards of 7 years ago if not more.
They weren’t clear what backer tiers and rewards had yet to be fulfilled after all this time, but multiple comments on the Indiegogo page suggest that could include the promised exclusive Crowdfunded Physical Edition players had to spend $100+ for.
I’m sure I’m not the only one with outstanding physical crowdfunding rewards in that I’ve not received a single one. And by this point, I’d think I’d just like a refund. No reason to have my money go to a game that didn’t keep it’s word on what I supported it for.
— Pixel Grip (@Pixel_Grip94) November 22, 2023
That of course has some now asking for refunds though we’ll have to wait and see if anything more comes of that.