Yesterday, I published a piece looking back at 10 years of Fez, and while writing it, I couldn’t help but wonder what the game’s creator, Phil Fish, was up to now.
Just to recap: Fish left the games industry not long after Fez’s release, cancelling Fez 2 in the process. He then partially re-emerged with indie publishing label Polytron Partners a year later, in 2014, but was driven away again by repeated harassment from GamerGate. The last we saw of him was a collaboration on 2016 VR game SuperHypeCube.
I thought I’d drop him a line for editorial process’ sake, then, but I didn’t expect to hear anything back. A games journalist is probably the last person he wants to hear from. But I was wrong and he did reply, and so in a stretched out celebration of Fez’s birthday, here’s what he said.
This will sound silly but did you realise the 10-year anniversary was approaching? And if you did, was it something you knew instinctively or did something remind you? Was there a sudden rush of memory or a moment your mind flashed to? Where does ‘Fez turning 10’ take you?
Phil Fish: I find it alarming. A decade? That’s absurd.
The five-year anniversary stuff we did feels like yesterday. What’s next? An even higher number?!
The real kicker is that the tenth anniversary of release means fifteen years since the start of this adventure for me. That’s wild. Time is wild, man.
Are you marking the 10th anniversary of Fez in any way?
Phil Fish: I’m planning a quiet evening of drinking and crying.
One thing that struck me while playing Fez was how timeless it felt, and I suppose that’s something you can never gauge until it’s been around for a while – like, say, a decade! To me, Fez does fall into the same category as those Nintendo games – Marios and otherwise – I remember you saying inspired you. How does that make you feel to hear that?
Phil Fish: It’s very flattering, but I don’t know if it’s true. That’s like me grilling one great steak and calling myself a steak master.
I think it owes a lot of that feeling of timelessness to the games that inspired it, and the fact that pixel art is still around and has kind of always been at this point. I don’t think it only plays as a retro/nostalgic thing. Good pixel art is still coming out all the time so it still feels contemporary.
Definitely never expected it to have that kind of longevity, though. I’m forever surprised by that.
Have your thoughts about the game changed in the 10 years since it was released? Perspective can be a powerful modifier. Maybe your opinion has changed multiple times since launch. Has it? What do you think about the game now?