A follow-up to hit game Minecraft has been shelved by its creator.
Markus ‘Notch’ Persson has announced he has stopped developing the provisionally-titled 0x10pc – a space-themed game set in the distant future.
The company behind Minecraft, Mojang, made £57m in profit in 2012 and has continually promoted the anticipated follow-up during its development.
But Persson has since called quits on the project, telling fans in a live web stream that someone stole the code for the game as well as blaming high profile interest in the game for his decision not to continue with development.
He said on Twitter: "It was much easier to have grand plans when nobody knew who I was. The gaming world doesn’t need more under delivering visionaries."
He also said he would work just on small games in the future with less mass appeal, after Minecraft won five awards at the 2011 Game Developers Conference, including the Innovation Award, Best Downloadable Game Award, and the Best Debut Game Award.
The game allowed players to build things from textured cubes representing different materials as players tried to build communities that would survive by using resources and avoiding threats posed by animals, villagers and hostile creatures.
