It was a bit of a shocking but somehow unsurprising announcement back at E3 when Microsoft and Tim Shafer announced that the Redmond giant had purchased Double Fine, a company heavily rooted in the indie scene. Ever since then, many have had their doubts about the future of Double Fine Presents, the publishing arm of the company.

It's published many a fine indie title including Escape Goat 2, Mountain, Gang Beats and most recently Knights and Bikes, the latter of which was published post-Microsoft. It seems now though that may actually have been the last game to be released under the label. 

Tim Shafer spoke about the matter with Destructoid this past week, stating that the future of the branch isn't "clear" - but if it did continue, it is unlikely to be in it's current form.

How Double Fine Presents will evolve is kind of an unknown. It doesn't make sense to do exactly the kind of publishing stuff if we can't do it—like if the platforms are limited, from a business sense, I don't know if it structurally makes sense to have a publisher within a publisher. It's a complicated issue.

He did however commit to continue to support indie devs by helping their games get wider exposure, even if it's not as a hands-on publishing company. One example was his commitment to continue initiatives such as "Day of the Devs", which is an event designed to showcase indie games to the public for free.

He also reiterated similar comments from E3, stating that the Microsoft purchase was on the whole a positive move that would let the studio become "experimental" and focus on development rather than other aspects of running a game company, such as worrying about publishing or funding.

Stay tuned to GameFront for any further news on this as it happens.