Following the shutdown of Firewalk Studios’ Harmony not lengthy after its rocky launch, there’d been loads of chatter about whether or not it’d get an opportunity to return again, and extra importantly what’d occur to its builders. Nicely, we now know the reply to each of these questions – Harmony’s gone for good, and Firewalk has been shut down.
Sadly, this appeared prefer it might effectively be the result ever since PlayStation made the choice to take the sport offline on September 6 following a launch which noticed low participant counts and gross sales estimates, particularly in an business local weather that is already seen far too many closures and layoffs in 2024. Not that figuring out that in all probability makes issues any simpler for the devs affected.
In an official weblog put up, Sony launched an inside electronic mail from Hermen Hulst – the CEO of SIE’s studio enterprise group – confirming that it is taken the choice to “completely sundown” Harmony and shut Firewalk. Cellular developer Neon Koi, which was engaged on an unannounced “cellular motion recreation” that now will not see the sunshine of day, has additionally been shuttered on the similar time.
Hulst wrote that the closures had been determined upon as a part of “ongoing efforts to strengthen SIE’s studio enterprise”. “Each selections got critical thought, and in the end, we really feel they’re the appropriate ones to strengthen the group,” he added, “Neon Koi and Firewalk had been house to many proficient people, and we are going to work to seek out placement for a few of these impacted inside our world neighborhood of studios the place doable.”
In keeping with Bloomberg, “about 210 jobs” are affected, and subsequently round that variety of employees might want to discover new work – both inside PlayStation or elsewhere – because of the two studios shutting down. Sony solely acquired Firewalk in 2023, whereas Neon Koi had solely been a PlayStation studio since 2022, having been acquired by the console large whereas underneath its earlier identify of Savage Video games Studios.
“Firewalk started with the concept of bringing the enjoyment of multiplayer to a bigger viewers,” the studio wrote in a Twitter put up adressing the closure, which recapped a few of the achievements of its crew, “We took some dangers alongside the way in which – marrying points of card battlers and preventing video games with first-person-shooters – and though a few of these and different points of the IP didn’t land as we hoped, the concept of placing new issues into the world is essential to pushing the medium ahead.
“The expertise at Firewalk and the extent of particular person craft is really world-class, and groups inside Sony Interactive Leisure and throughout the business might be lucky to work with them.”
Along with thanking Firewalk employees, Hulst wrote of Harmony in his electronic mail: “The PvP first particular person shooter style is a aggressive area that’s constantly evolving, and sadly, we didn’t hit our targets with this title. We are going to take the teachings realized from Harmony and proceed to advance our reside service capabilities to ship future progress on this space.”
Kotaku experiences that preliminary growth deal for the hero shooter, which PlayStation has now determined it is executed with and shuttered the studio behind simply over two months after launch, value the corporate $200 million, with this not overlaying quite a few different points of growth that’d seemingly have added to the full.