Not surprised if true. My top 4 were -
- Elsewhere Entertainment (founding a studio worked out great the last time)
- Turn 10 Studios (motorsport appears to be done so why keep them around?)
- Double Fine Productions (amazingly innovative but their games don’t do anything)
- Compulsion Games (hoping this isn’t true but wouldn’t be surprised if it is)
Here we go… That industry man…
South of Midnight was incredible for a studio of that size. I’m so scared for Double Fine and Tim…
Agreed. I really enjoyed South of Midnight (8.0/10 for me) and was hoping for a sequel. The combat/gameplay was a poor man’s Kena but everything else was great.
Double fine will be fine, they are one of the studios who actually launched games, they were of hit or miss quality sure but they were one of the studios who actually released stuff, they will probably lose freedoms though. Also double fine feels like a studio would be spun off rather than killed in my opinion
Hate to say it but this doesn’t really surprise me. Compulsion’s thing seems to be offbeat/niche storytelling combined with “just okay” gameplay (my opinion).
They must have known South of Midnight was a risk. As cool and unique as Deep South folklore is, it’s not a tried-and-true video game theme that people are already interested in. It would have been one thing if the gameplay was 11/10 to compel people to try it even if they were otherwise uninterested in the setting. But that just wasn’t really the case IMO.
The fault lies in whatever manager/overseer at Xbox told the studio, “Take the swing and tell the story you want to tell, it’s okay if it doesn’t sell great.” And is now pulling out the rug from under them after that’s what they did.
They also took too long to make a new game after being acquired in 2018. Xbox needed new games, even small experiences, and FAST at that time and their next game released last year…
You just have no second chance in that industry. Even an incredible game can’t save you sometimes…
I would argue we happy few could be counted as their 1st chance, granted you could counter that by say Microsoft needs to be more careful of what they acquire. We happy few was such a disappointment
I think they also had to hire a lot of people after WHF. With these kind of projects, you can’t hire anybody. Their graphic style and the way they did it is inspiring, but was also a risky gamble.
In the end, it was the game they wanted to make and they put their heart and soul into it. It reminds me of Hi-Fi Rush in a sense, an incredible game that was just too good for this world.
Seems the most obvious one, im surprised by how “big” they were, near 100 headcount, i thought it was in the 30s-40s.
Also just checked and SoM had over 1000 persons on it’s credits, so i guess it wasn’t a cheap one, and it’s at around 200k sales even releasing at a reduced price, so i guess the company’s a black hole financially speaking.
Greenlighting the idea of a game focused on stop motion and music and art related to south american folklore had to be one of the riskiest moves in the industry recently, not sure if there’s any studio in the world who could have made something like that profitable
I admit I played it with stop motion turned off, the style gives me a headache for some reason, but the game was good.
Unfortunately almost anything connected to the USA is toxic as hell in Europe at the moment, and in the US culture wars may have played a part - also doesn’t help Xbox games don’t get a fair shake from the gaming media
Also I loved We Happy Few, it had great British humour.
Real shame if it’s Compulsion (and do hope negotiations to maybe go independent again or something work), and I’m really worried if there’s a second studio too that’ll be a surprise - glad it’s not Obsidian or Rare and doubt they’d do Halo Studios, The Coalition, Playground, inXileor Ninja Theory given they’ve got games on the way but that doesn’t leave many other options…
MachineGames, Arkane and maybe World’s End are all I can think of but they’ve all been called out for great output recently haven’t they?
Maybe they can buy out their contract and go indie. But I do wonder if they can also get the SoM IP.
I’d imagine they can get all their IP as much of it was theirs before the acquisition, and SoM doesn’t have much value to Xbox.
Although if I were them I’d do another We Happy Few or similar, the themes in it are very current to the UK at the moment (particularly after 2029 unfortunately) and it’s probably their biggest IP isn’t it?
I don’t know much about We Happy Few, as I tried the beta(or pre release build) and it wasn’t for me. But if it’s the game with the most appeal because of the survibal crafting, it would do them good to make a sequel.
With SoM I was thinking they already have a world built oit with assets they cam re use to get a game out faster. The issue I think comes the music that SoM uses as part of it’s dtpry telling and uf they could implement it for a sequel.
True, and for We Happy Few I was less thinking the gameplay (they can go more mainstream) but the 1984 style world as it’s quite relevant.
But true, a sequel with the same assets could do decent numbers for an independent dev that doesn’t have the expectations of a platform on them
I doubt this will result in anything, they lack the leverage toys for bob had. I think their best chance is being transformed into a support studio potentially for bethesda since its rumoured MS wants elder scrolls and fallout games to speed up or they are absorbed into another studio
They were independent before, I imagine they can go back to that particularly as their leadership are still in place and know what they’re doing.
Fuck Xbox’s offer if it’s boring shit like being in the mines for another game, they’ve survived alone before and I hope they’re able to thrive outside Xbox
I am just giving my opinion on whats realistic, ideally I would rather they go independent over being closed as despite not being a fan of studio closures