As you may remember, earlier this year Pixelmage Games debuted its first game, an open world fantasy action RPG by the name of Hero's Song. As of two months ago, the game launched via Steam Early Access.

Now, word has come that the game has been cancelled, and that Pixelmage has closed its doors, citing sales falling short of what it needed to continue.

Hero's Song first began its journey on Kickstarter, but was cancelled after the studio only raised $137,000 in about a week, and realized it would never reach its $800,000 goal. The game still pressed on with development however, as it already had a million dollars in raised funds from private backing.

As for Pixelmage Games itself, it was notably a studio founded by John Smedley, the former head of Daybreak Games/Sony Online Entertainment.

Over on the studio's official website, Smedley writes the following about the announcement:

"It's with a heavy heart that I have to report that Pixelmage Games is going to be shutting down and we have ceased development on Hero's Song. For the last year, our team has worked tirelessly to make the game we've dreamed about making, and with your support, and the support of our investors, we were able to get the game into Early Access. Unfortunately sales fell short of what we needed to continue development. We knew going in that most startups don't make it, and as an indie game studio we hoped we would be the exception to that rule, but as it turned out we weren't."

100 percent refunds are being offered for any who purchased the game. If you purchased via Steam, you will follow the normal refund process. If you purchased via Indiegogo you will need to send an email to refunds@pixelmagegames.com with your name and information about which one of the packages you bought. Pixelmage will respond to confirm it has received your email and get you your refund as quickly as possible.

Smedely concluded with the following send-off statement:

Thank you for all the support you showed us. We're sorry things worked out the way they did, but we feel strongly that we gave it our all and we're proud of how far we came with the game. The fact that we weren't able to finish the game is painful, but the journey of making Hero's Song has been a great experience for us and we’re just sorry we couldn’t take it all the way.