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[IbizaPocholo]

I did some deep diving on this game. I found a bunch of Reddit posts that had a LOT of deleted accounts and comments. I have links with screenshots that should tie up any loose ends, contact me if you want the sources of my info but I'm 99% certain this game is dead and we will never see it. but here is the summary.

As stated by someone who was attempting to invest in the title, Aaron (The games primary developer) worked extremely hard on this project to the point where he entirely burnt himself out. His mental health was suffering and he was pushing away everyone who was trying to help him develop this title including Peter (the primary programmer). The investor suggested to Aaron (circa end of 2016) that they would buy Routine from him while allowing him to keep the title under Lunar Software. Arron was not interested at all, mind you this investor was an unnamed IRL friend of Aaron. Aaron went completely dark from the project before Routines given deadline.

Several years later a bunch of redditors found Aarons ArtStation and found out that he was making Fortnite fan art instead of working on Routine and started blasting him on reddit. Trolls followed suit and after that absolutely everything about the guy goes completely dark.

It's very sad given that this man was probably full of anxiety over a project he didn't dream of becoming as popular as it did. It was one of the fastest green lit games on steam and I remember its debut back in 2012. I was highly anticipating this title as well and it just hurts me to see that this was how this developer was treated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLht-lieiPo&lc=UgxbF4F-mXDTZW5eE2d4AaABAg

 

[The Dead Flag Blues]

Remember this from steam greenlight way back, looked very promising. A shame it never came to fruition.

 

[Vindicator]

Alien:Isolation happened.

 

[Dave_at_Home]

Glad you brought this up since I've been wondering for a while what happened to this game. It sure seemed promising. I wonder how close it was to completion. Hopefully it will see a release one day.

 

[Nymphae]

I've been waiting for this for so long

 

[robor]

Well this is pretty weird:

"Company registry update from "dormant" to "active"

As I said last time I posted about this, I'm not trying to imply that this means anything is going to happen for Routine. I'm just listing off my observations.
Anyway, my going thought was we could at least check their docs on the company registry; to have the company registered legally, they have to submit documents a couple times a year and pay submission fees. If their registration expired we could at least use that as closure.
So, I checked again this year, and I see sometime around June they filed paperwork causing the company to go from "Dormant" to "Active" in the registry. They went from 1£ cash in bank to 30k, and they now have debtors and shareholders. While the paperwork was filed in June 2021, it was for things they did from September 2019 through September 2020.
So... it certainly *looks like* they were up to something in 2020. It's worth keeping in mind that these are *unaudited* statements. The companies house doesn't verify anything that was said in these documents, only that the documents were submitted and signed. However, LS would *probably* be committing some type of highly illegal fraud to submit false info.
That's all I found.
If I was to speculate...I don't know what else they'd be doing. It's hard to imagine them announcing another game under the Lunar Software name and expecting anyone to take them seriously. I'm not trying to make an argument from ignorance here; I don't know enough about game development to suggest other things a small studio with their history could be up to. Selling off assets? Side work/some kind of game dev ghost writing for another studio? I have no idea."

source: Company registry update from "dormant" to "active" : Routine (reddit.com)

The official company registration details: LUNAR SOFTWARE LTD filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK (company-information.service.gov.uk)

The website is still active with the year date of 2021 at the bottom: LunarSoftware | Archive | Games (lunar-software.com)

I ain't holding my breath here...but it is all quite odd in light of such details...

 

[robor]

No way!

I made this prediction a while back (here: Raise the flame shield: Your "controversial" gaming opinion. | NeoGAF) that the game was still in production.

 

[bArTl3bY]

I’m not going to hold my breath but this tidbit of news is interesting. The trailer for this along with Hawken (man, I sure can pick them, huh) is what led to me coming back to the PC scene in early 2013.

At this point I highly doubt we’ll get anything playable but it would be a grand day if I’m wrong.