Dynamite Blue developers explained the reason for the sudden shutdown of Exos Heroes and 4GROUND9. Read on to learn more about why their previous projects didn’t pan out and what the team plans to do moving forward.
Dynamite Blue Developer Q&A Thread Explains Current and Previous Projects
Why Exos Heroes Shutdown
Dynamite Blue developers gave light on the status of their current project and previous titles. In a Reddit thread on r/Exos Heroes posted on December 30, 2025, the development team discussed why their past games were shut down abruptly.
The developers of the upcoming pixel-art cyberpunk RPG, Dynamite Blue, were first known for their work in the live-service mobile gacha game, Exos Heroes. They were once part of the South Korean mobile game developer OOZOO Inc., before breaking away around 2024 due to several internal complications.
The Dynamite Blue team comprises several core members of Exos Heroes, including its original director, Youngzun Choi, and art director, Minsuk Son. With the recent announcement of their current project, the developers wanted to clarify what really happened during the final moments of their previous title, as fans are still baffled by its sudden closure.
Exos Heroes was best known for its incredible visual fidelity dubbed as "Visualism", which combined traditional turn-based combat with a massive open world and a distinct "high-gothic airship pirate" aesthetic. It was first released in South Korea in November 2019, followed by its global launch in May 2020 and PC release in August 2022.
Services for Exos Heroes ended on May 11, 2023, due to the unfortunate combination of development mistakes, declining revenue, and a massive community backlash following its Season 5 update.
Because Exos Heroes was a live-service title, the developers were under constant pressure to push out weekly updates and fresh content. They admitted that they "weren't capable enough to maintain fast development while building a stable structure," which is why core systems of the game became complicated over time as updates piled up.
"Some existing players enjoyed it, some didn't. But it became too complex for new or returning players to adapt," they said. While the Season 5 update was meant to fix the game, it backfired due to massive character overhauls, oversimplified combat, and heavy nerfs to top-tier heroes.
The update proved to be a drastic overcorrection as it effectively rendered years of player progress worthless by stripping away the value of carefully built characters. "In the end, we lost the game we tried to save faster, and more importantly, we lost the trust of players who had been with us for so long," the developers said.
The Aftermath, 4GROUND9, and Dynamite Blue
After Exos Heroes shut down, the developers wanted to make a comeback with a new title called "4GROUND9." However, in their first Devlog on Dynamite Blue’s itch.io page, posted on December 9, 2025, they stated that the game fell apart due to "various complicated circumstances."
Following a string of setbacks, the team grappled with the idea of quitting and going their separate ways. Despite these unfortunate events, they pushed themselves further and decided to continue developing together, thus forming the Dynamite Blue team.
"Not quite a company, not just a group of friends - somewhere in between, burning passion with whatever we have left. Dynamite Blue is what happens when you strip away the corporate stuff and just... make something you'd want to play," they said.
With this renewed determination to develop games, the Dynamite Blue team aims to create a title that players can enjoy for at least five years. Although they admitted that their team is much smaller, they will continue trying and do better this time around.
Dynamite Blue is currently in development and is expected to enter Closed Beta Testing soon. The developers promised to share more details regarding the game’s progress through their devlog posts on their itch.io page.
Source:
r/ExosHeroes | Exos Heroes Season 5, 4GROUND9, and Dynamite Blue
# Devlog #1 - Why we started over
Dynamite Blue itch.io page
