WarDevil canceled after five years

After five years in development, Ignition's ambitious action game WarDevil has been canceled, according to Develop. The final nail in the game's coffin follows last month's reported closure of Ignition's London studio (formerly Digi-Guys) where the long-suffering game was being crafted. (As it happens, Ignition now says the London studio will soldier on as the hub of a refocused digital development operation, but that's neither here nor there.)

So, who could have ever guessed this would happen? Why, you, dear reader. Here, let's look at our past WarDevil headlines and see if we couldn't have CSI'ed this thing out.

• Ignition shutting down London studio, fate of WarDevil under evaluation (This is kind of an obvious one. Let's dig deeper.)

• WarDevil resurfaces in bizarre (original) Xbox demonstration ("Resurfaces" is what we call a "danger word." Also: This story was from a year ago.)

• Relax! WarDevil isn't cancelled (Justin from August of 2009 feels really bad about leading you astray here.)

• WarDevil returns in first new trailer in two years ("Returns" isn't as bad as "resurfaces," except when you add the phrase "after two years.")

• WarDevil: Enigma screens drop out of the sky (This story from 2007 is notable only because someone somewhere realized that the unintentionally hilarious subtitle would have to be removed.)

Our hearts, of course, go out to those hurt by the cancellation, but we'd like to think the reaction of those closest to the game was less "How could this happen?" and more "Oh, well, naturally."