A spiritual successor to the legendary SSX snowboarding series was in development but wiped out before it could be announced.
Rebekah Valentine, Senior Reporter at IGN revealed the status of the spiritual successor to SSX in their report on mass layoffs within the games industry. The article included a statement from a developer who had worked on the cancelled snowboarding title.
The title, codenamed ‘Project Gravity’, was under development at SuperNatural Studios, the team founded by original SSX creators Steve Rechtschaffer and Larry LaPierre.
A former SuperNatural Studios employee revealed to IGN that the studio was creating the spiritual successor to SSX with 2K set to publish the title. It appears that 2K pulled out of the project, potentially due to rising development costs.
The SuperNatural Studios developer notes that the studio worked entirely remotely despite paying for a large office in the downtown Vancouver area.
It’s Tr-Tr-Tr-Tricky
Of course the cancellation of the spiritual successor to SSX isn’t the first setback for long-time fans of the series. EA’s own SSX reboot in 2012 received mixed reactions due to the increased emphasis on survival and toned-down personality.
Project Gravity looked to rectify that tonal shift. Speaking to Laptop Mag back in March 2021, former SSX Executive Producer and SuperNatural Studios founder Rechtschaffer said that the studio wanted to make an “arcadey, amazing-feeling, very accessible, competitive and fun game”.
The spiritual successor to SSX would have been a free-to-play, live service title that introduced new content, courses and characters throughout its lifespan.
It’s only now, three years later, that we know of Project Gravity’s cancellation.
SSX debuted alongside the launch of the PlayStation 2 and was the first title under the EA Sports BIG label.
EA Sports BIG took sports such as snowboard supercross, basketball, football and motocross and injected them with high-octane spectacle alongside arcadey gameplay that was at odds with EA’s other sporting titles such as the FIFA and NBA Live series.
