Note: This story was originally posted on Gamasutra on August 15, 2017.

"There were a lot of subtle elements in my past platformers that I never fully explored because I was worried about alienating the audience. I wanted to make a game that was honestly a bit uncomfortable to play for people who have issues with stress. I wanted to make a game about stress, pressure and expectation. I feel like I was able to do exactly that in simple and elegant ways I'm quite proud of."

Edmund McMillen hasn't returned to hyper-challenging platformers since Super Meat Boy arguably set a new standard for them back in 2010. After years of development work on The Binding of Isaac and a handful of other titles, it felt right for the developer to return to the genre and explore the things he had been afraid to do then.
The End is Nigh is a ludicrously challenging platformer about the inevitability of death. Created along with Tyler Glaiel (Closure), it brings a new spirit to the genre, one that explores the pressures of stress and bottomless despair, yet still contains those soaring moments of accomplishment that spit in the eye of failure.

"In the past, people would say my work felt like a love letter to classic video games," says McMillen. "I wanted The End is Nigh to walk the line of a suicide note or retirement letter. Its themes really are an abstract tale of the dark side of game development - the lonely, stressful, paranoid dregs of the creative process.&qu...