Studio MDHR does not do small announcements. At Summer Game Fest, the creators of Cuphead revealed not one but two projects, both Cuphead-flavored, and both — in keeping with a studio that shipped 2017's most beautiful game and then vanished into its pencil-case for years — explicitly in the long game.
The first: an all-new, fully hand-animated Cuphead adventure, which MDHR describes as being in "early stages" of development. Read that phrase the way the studio means it. The 2017 original took years because every frame was drawn, inked and painted like a 1930s cartoon; the follow-up being early means it's years away, and MDHR being honest about that upfront is the most MDHR thing possible.
The second is the more immediately interesting oddity: Mighty Cuphead Adventure, a pixel-art spin-off from a smaller internal team that channels the Sega Master System era — 8-bit rendering, sensible sprite constraints, the whole nostalgia package. It's the second Cuphead project running in parallel, meaning the studio has quietly doubled its output future.
The original remains a titan of the indie canon: boss-rush design so exacting it became a language, an art style lovingly stolen from Fleischer-era animation, and a soundtrack that swung hard enough to earn Grammy buzz. Whatever MDHR does with that property, the community will wait for it — hand-drawn frames take the time they take.
One new adventure, one retro spin-off, zero dates. That's fine. We can wait for our cup to runeth over.