Just Add Water: Microsoft killed XBLA version of Stranger's Wrath

Developer Just Add Water has sadly announced that Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD will not be coming to Xbox Live Arcade, and the chief reason is that Microsoft is not allowing them to, forcing them to jump through ever-increasingly difficult hoops.

According to the community rep, ”The boat has really passed on that one. We’re winding up development on Stranger’s Wrath HD and Munch’s Oddysee HD. Blame Microsoft for not letting us publish on Xbox 360.”

The first time Microsoft turned down the game was when they stated games could not be larger than 2GB. Even when the developer created a sub-2GB version of Stranger’s Wrath, they refused.

Microsoft then stipulated that a game had to score above 80 on Metacriticto be on Arcade or Games on Demand. However, Microsoft turned them down again, despite the original Xbox version having an 88 Metacritic and the PlayStation Network version having an 82.

Finally, Microsoft stated the game had to sell a million copies to be sold on Xbox Live Arcade. That, Stranger’s Wrath fell short of.

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD earned a 9.0/10 score in Strategy Informer’s review of the PlayStation 3 version.