Bethesda's Commander Keen mobile game has seemingly been scrapped

Bethesda's PvP reimagining of PC platformer series Commander Keen has seemingly been scrapped. Almost all trace of its official social media presence is now gone, and it's also been purged from ZeniMax's site.

Good news, that Commander Keen mobile game has been officially cancelled. Seems like ZeniMax Online Studios realized how much of a terrible idea it was and deleted almost every single trace of it off social media. https://t.co/3YdvPLgIYF pic.twitter.com/jtx5G8jH0w — Pixelbuster (@Nitomatta) June 25, 2020

This very much appeared to be a Commander Keen game in name alone, shifting the focus from charming platforming action towards real-time card battles. You could decide whether to play as Billy or Billie, the original Commander Keen's twin children, then use a host of impressive gadgets to claim victory in bitesized matches.

This one's announcement at E3 last year was not particularly well received at all, which is a shame given how long it's been since the last game in the series. Twitter user @Nitomatta (via Pocketgamer.biz) was first to notice the quiet removal of info, and at the time of writing, their post sits at 3.6k likes, which is potentially more than the < 5k downloads Commander Keen has racked up during its time on Google Play.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to the series, which I imagine is true of most people under the age of 25, but this attempt at a mobile reboot still felt deeply off. Who was it for exactly? Why did it have to be such a radical departure from the earlier games? It looked like the sort of project that gets made simply because someone owns the rights to a potentially popular IP and wants to get something – anything – out there.

Commander Keen's Google Play page is still live for now, though I suspect it won't stay that way for long.

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