Microsoft's Xbox-exclusive lineup grew one game smaller on Monday. The company had long teased the launch of action-adventure game Scalebound, made by esteemed Japanese developer Platinum Games, but after repeated delays and a noticeable absence on game expo show floors, the game received a formal cancellation today.

"After careful deliberation, Microsoft Studios has come to the decision to end production for Scalebound," the company said in a statement. "We're working hard to deliver an amazing lineup of games to our fans this year, including Halo Wars 2, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves, and other great experiences."

Scalebound would have allowed players to control, at alternating times, a sword-wielding warrior and a fire-breathing dragon on a giant quest. Exactly how the game would have played out was never clear. Microsoft never allowed press or the public to test the in-progress game at expo events, leaving us with little more than three-minute video snippets during game expo keynotes. As Ars' Mark Walton wrote last year, "Microsoft hasn't so much shown off Scalebound as it has demonstrated a bunch of neat but disparate gameplay systems without actually showing anyone the game." (The same can be said for two more "2017" games that Microsoft mentioned in its Monday statement, Crackdown 3 and State of Decay 2. We haven't seen playable versions of either game in the wild to date.)

The game's cancellation, which had been all-but-confirmed by games sites Kotaku and Eurogamer hours earlier, means Xbox fans have lost another solid-looking exclusive, though Scalebound's co-op elements mean it was never a purely "single-player" game. The last major single-player game from Microsoft Studios was September's Recore, a half-baked collaboration between Kenji "Mega Man" Inafune and Armature Games. This also means the company has zero unannounced games with major Japanese developers involved, which probably won't help move the needle for the famously unpopular-in-Japan console.

For Platinum Games, the cancellation marks another low note for the studio. The developer, which has been most famous for its slick run-and-slash games (Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance) had a less stellar 2016 thanks to the ho-hum Star Fox Zero and the atrocious licensed brawler Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan. Fans of the developer will have to keep their fingers crossed that the upcoming Nier: Automata for Windows PCs and PlayStation 4 consoles can redeem the dev's reputation next month. (Its free demo, live on PS4 consoles right now, is promising enough.)