After 14 years of operation, indie developer Studio Fizbin is closing its doorways: Co-founder Alexander Pieper stated as we speak that the studio will wind down this spring after releasing its subsequent and last recreation, Reignbreaker.
“The video games business is in a troublesome state of affairs proper now, and we’ve been affected like numerous different unimaginable studios in current months,” Pieper wrote on the Studio Fizbin web site.
“Our father or mother firm Thunderful made the choice to drastically cut back inner improvement in November 2024, which, as Thunderful’s CEO Martin communicated within the newest quarterly report, additionally affected Studio Fizbin. Since then, we’ve been exploring varied alternatives to work on after ending Reignbreaker. Sadly, none of those tasks will transfer ahead, main us to make this troublesome resolution.
“Which means that Reignbreaker might be Studio Fizbin’s last recreation. We consider it will be the most effective recreation we’ve ever launched, and our wonderful staff might be working laborious to launch it on the 18th of March in addition to offering post-launch assist.”
Thunderful, based in 2018 by a merger between Steamworld developer Picture & Kind and Fe developer Zoink, has certainly been struggling. The studio introduced a “restructuring program” in January 2024 that noticed roughly 20 % of its workforce laid off; a second restructuring adopted in November 2024 that put between 80-100 individuals out of labor. In its most up-to-date monetary report, Thunderful stated the cuts have left it “extra agile and sustainable,” and I suppose we’ll see how lengthy that holds up.
Reignbreaker, as we stated in our current rundown of one-sentence critiques for 70 Steam Subsequent Fest demos that appear price your time, is “a Hades-like motion roguelike that has a reasonably distinctive ‘medievalpunk’ model and really understands the ‘punk’ a part of that.” It appears to be like fairly cool if you happen to’re into that form of factor:
Personally, I am extra bummed out by Studio Fizbin’s closure due to its previous work. Its first recreation, the 2013 point-and-click journey The Interior World, confirmed flashes of brilliance and the 2017 sequel The Final Wind Monk was even stronger.
Extra lately, Studio Fizbin launched Minute of Islands, a darkish, melancholy, however unusually lovely recreation about how the top of the world is possibly okay that was critically well-received however did not entice many gamers.
Studio Fizbin is a type of oddball operations that does attention-grabbing issues, and like so many in that specific area of interest—and past, as a result of the malaise that is gripped the videogame business over the previous few years has taken a toll on builders of all sizes—it simply wasn’t in a position to flip its inventive ambitions into long-term stability.
A selected closure date hasn’t been introduced—for now, Pieper stated the studio is specializing in “transport the most effective recreation attainable after two and a half years of laborious work,” and “supporting our exceptionally proficient staff find new alternatives within the business.”
