After six years as an Embracer studio, Carmageddon: Rogue Shift developer 34BigThings is independent again. The studio announced today that original co-founder Valerio Di Donato has acquired full ownership of the studio, which will now be led by Di Donato, fellow co-founder Giuseppe Enrico Franchi, and new chief financial officer Daniel Giagnorio.

Di Donato paid tribute to Embracer in today's announcement, saying its stewardship enabled 34BigThings, whose previous releases include the Redout games, Mars or Die!, and Otto, to grow to more than 70 employees and establish itself as an acclaimed European developer.

• We're keeping track of all the Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals here

"This provided us with invaluable structure and stability, while offering a first-hand look at the complexities of balancing internal development with external stakeholders," Di Donato said.

Franchi said the return to independence gives the studio "absolute autonomy to shape our structure, our projects, and our development approach," a point he expanded on in a chat with PC Gamer. "Being independent means being free to pick and choose our own projects, freely discard what doesn’t work, allocate production resources the way we see fit, and being quicker in seizing external opportunities without having to wait for approval."

It certainly sounds like good news for 34BigThings, although its return to independence could be seen as a sign of continued upheaval at Embracer, which after ballooning to a surprise game industry powerhouse has spent the last few years laying off employees, closing and selling studios, and running through multiple restructurings.

It's not clear whether Embracer was shopping 34BigThings around as part of that process, and the price of its newly-reacquired independence wasn't disclosed so it's impossible to say whether Embracer took a Gearbox-style shellacking on it. But as far as Franchi is concerned, none of that is relevant anyway: "Our reacquisition plans were independent to any, if existing, conversations otherwise and motivated by the growth and future direction we wanted to see in the studio."

As for what comes next, 34BigThings is looking to kick off its next phase "with an absolute bang," Franchi said.

"Later this year, we will be announcing a major title built on one of the most important, beloved, and revered intellectual properties in the world. And that's just the start: our production pipeline is fully charged, with another major title scheduled for 2027 followed by another groundbreaking project slated for 2028."

It's a tale of two immersive sim remasters: Over the weekend, we shared the first trailer for Nightdive's take on Thief: The Dark Project in the PC Gaming Show, and the vibes couldn't be better. Nightdive has already shown a strong grasp of Looking Glass' Dark Engine and visual style in the System Shock 2 remaster.

The screenshots and trailer are extremely promising, showing a "how you remember it" treatment of Thief, lightly touching up its timeless medieval environments while overhauling its infamously low-poly, origami-looking NPCs. There's also the promise of Nightdive's customary DVD extras menu of art, preserved prototypes, and development footage.

Thief Remastered makes for a shocking contrast with Aspyr's upcoming Deus Ex Remastered, a game of a similar vintage and development lineage to Thief: The late '90s ferment of Austin, Boston, Ion Storm, and Looking Glass. Aspyr's first reveal of the project was met with skepticism for its confounding overhaul of Deus Ex's visuals⁠⁠.

It looks like Deus Ex for the original Xbox, a half-generation's advancement with a focus on now-dated graphical effects. Deus Ex, but hybridized with its own bloom-y, normal mapped sequel, Invisible War. That'd be an interesting conceit for a visual overhaul mod, but Aspyr explicitly presents Deus Ex Remastered as "the definitive version of Ion Storm's legendary cyberpunk immersive sim." We don't have it in hand, but I would hardly call it "definitive" as a die-hard fan who habitually replays the original.

Nightdive's work on 'Shock 2 and Thief are a cut above any HD texture or model pack I've ever seen for the games, while retaining full mod compatibility. So far, there's no word on mod compatibility in Deus Ex Remastered, but Aspyr has a decent record on that front with its Steam ports of classic Star Wars games, as well as its Neverwinter Nights 2 remaster, which I liked and nobody else seems to.

Aspyr's work on the Neverwinter Nights 2 remaster struck the right balance: It was largely light touch with the visuals, but it added Steam Deck and controller support, was only $10 more expensive than the $20 version already available on GOG, and, most crucially, made a game with longstanding bugs, performance hitches, and resolution issues run perfectly on modern hardware.

What Aspyr showcased for a remaster of Deus Ex isn't even close to the same value proposition, though. The original Deus Ex already goes for less than a dollar in Steam sales quite often, and unlike Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold on GOG, Deus Ex largely runs well on modern hardware. Absent some kind of visual overhaul or Nightdive's DVD extras, Deus Ex Remastered is left begging for a reason to exist.

The Golden Path

What's most confounding of all is that The Embracer Group owns the rights to both games, and it has effectively A/B tested the response to these projects. Thief Remastered has been getting unanimous praise and buzz on social media⁠—it's a real love fest in the comments of its trailer on YouTube. Deus Ex Remastered's own first trailer has a comment section that feels like a funeral, with multiple users explicitly wishing the project had been given to Nightdive.

It's not too late. I don't mean to pick on Aspyr here: I've enjoyed its prior work like the modern ports of classic Star Wars games or the aforementioned Neverwinter Nights 2 remaster, and the studio's had a rough couple years. It had the Knights of the Old Republic remake taken away, and was also blocked by Disney from including The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod in its console ports of KotOR 2, leading to a multi-year court case.

But Deus Ex is too important to have a remaster fumbled like this, particularly if there's any risk of the original game being delisted from storefronts as a result. I want to see this project either canceled or rebooted, ideally with Nightdive taking over or co-developing. It feels like a slim possibility, but Deus Ex Remastered has been indefinitely delayed since that initial reveal, and I choose to believe this world still has the capacity for pleasant surprise.

Embracer CEO Phil Rogers didn't win himself many new fans when he said a few years ago that the company's slash-and-burn restructuring, the result of years of hand-over-fist acquisitions that, whoops, it couldn't really afford, was "how we win." This was when Rogers was still Embracer's interim chief strategy officer, prior to his 2025 ascension to CEO, a not-really change in power that saw outgoing CEO Lars Wingefors, the mastermind of Embracer's rise and fall, become its executive chair, a position from which he will focus on "mergers and acquisitions and capital allocation."

Embracer announced the end of that restructuring in March 2024 with the sale of Gearbox, but layoffs and closures have continued more or less apace since then: In October 2025 Embracer sold off Arc Games and Cryptic Studios, for instance, and in March 2026 it laid off 124 people at Eidos Montreal, the fourth round of layoffs at the studio since January 2024.

It's also restructured three times: In April 2024 it transformed into three separate, publicly listed companies named Asmodee Corp, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-Earth Enterprises & Friends; in May 2025 it spun off the Coffee Stain group and renamed Middle Earth Enterprises & Friends to Fellowship Entertainment; and just last month, April 2026, it spun off Fellowship into its own publicly listed company.

That most recent move gave us one of the best headlines you will ever see:

I recap all of these things because in a new interview with The Game Business, Rogers expressed hope that despite everything—and it's a lot—"trust" in the company is improving.

"It’s been a very humbling experience," Rogers said. "There’s a lot of reflection on that in terms of how the industry changed and could we have not all predicted this?"

I think, as a quick aside, that the answer to his rhetorical question is clearly "yes": Perhaps not all of it, but certainly some of it. The runaway growth of the game industry was fuelled by the extraordinary demands of the Covid-19 pandemic, which kept us at home a lot more than we were used to and thus forced us to find new things to do. This was never going to be a permanent state of affairs and as the pandemic settled into the background, people started going outside again, because of course they did.

And sure, it's easy to make that call in hindsight, but I don't think it was all that difficult to make it in the moment either—and more to the point, these C-suite guys get paid millions of dollars every year precisely because they are supposed to know this stuff and make these calls properly. Embracer is hardly alone in that particular whiff, but the scale of its implosion has made it the pinup boy of hoo boy.

Anyway.

"I’d hope trust is improving," Roger continued. "In the industry, if you poll 100 people [asking] what they think about Embracer… whatever that score is, I want it to be better in a year, two years, five years, and that’s the pragmatism. Lots of companies in this industry have had tough times, and then reset and rethink things, and then improve. We’re absolutely in that camp."

Embracer certainly has room to improve, if only because it's spent the past three years making such a spectacular mess of things. In Rogers' defense, he's absolutely correct that the entire industry is in a bad state right now, with layoffs, closures, and cancellations taking a toll on studios of all sizes.

Whether that's likely to get better in the near future is an open question, as is how one even defines "better" in the first place. Rogers said he doesn't think that "necessarily with more money you find more fun," but finding ways to keep costs down, through the use of AI-powered tools or by developing in lower-cost regions, is clearly a priority. And despite Embracer's recent experiences, he said new mergers and acquisitions are always a possibility too—"with learnings" from the last blowup.

"Funding for any M&A would come through organic cash flows, which is really important to mention," Rogers said. "The Embracer [segment] has a lot of businesses that have created good positions. Some of them are very specialized. And again, if M&A can help grow those businesses, then it’s on the cards."

Embracer Group! It's the conglomerate you may recall from when it swallowed up seemingly half the industry a few years ago, before hitting a brick wall when a $2 billion mystery deal it had lined up vanished in a puff of smoke, leading to layoffs, sell-offs, and one stunned CEO at a press conference (don't worry, he got better).

Well, now what remains of Embracer (which is still quite a lot of corporation) is undergoing binary fission—the company is splitting in two, spinning off its Fellowship Entertainment arm into its own publicly listed company to "further increase management focus to capture the full potential of the high-quality assets in the group and accelerate value creation." And thank god. I was worried they weren't going to do that.

Fellowship Entertainment is so-called because it's the part of Embracer that handles everything Lord of the Rings, and the aliens who write corporate press releases say it "aims to become an IP-led entertainment company built for growth and enduring momentum, with some of the world's most beloved franchises at its centre as the stewards of The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider intellectual properties."

Fellowship will have a whole bunch of studios under its umbrella: "4A Games, Crystal Dynamics, Dambuster Studios, Dark Horse Media, Eidos-Montréal, Fishlabs, Flying Wild Hog Studios, Gunfire Games, Middle-earth Enterprises, Redoctane Games and Warhorse Studios" are going with it, says Embracer, and their various properties include "Darksiders, Dead Island, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Metro, Remnant, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Tomb Raider, and many more." They forgot the colon in Kingdom Come, there. Easily done.

The new company will try to both license out the many properties it holds—in both games and other forms of media—while at the same time creating and publishing stuff of its own.

As for the newer, svelter Embracer, that's taking "Aspyr, Beamdog, CrazyLabs, Deca, Demiurge, DPI Merchandising, Limited Run Games, Milestone, PLAION Partners, PLAION Pictures, THQ Nordic (including 35 studios and subsidiaries), Tripwire and Vertigo Games" in the split. Its properties include "Arizona Sunshine, Biomutant, Destroy All Humans!, Desperados, Gothic, Killing Floor, Kingdom of Amalur, MX vs. ATV, REANIMAL, Ride, Screamer, Titan Quest, Wreckfest, and many more IPs, as well as licenses such as Hot Wheels Unleashed and SpongeBob SquarePants."

In a separate letter to shareholders, Embracer head honcho Lars Wingefors expounded at length on how this move would, at the end of the day, make investors more money. Which is what you'd expect. But the more interesting part of his letter to mortals like you and me is this part: Wingefors says the company will be "more actively be exploring external partnership around our roster of other well-known IPs such as Saints Row, Legacy of Kain, Deus Ex, Red Faction, The Mask, Thief, TimeSplitters, amongst many others."

We've already seen new Legacy of Kain stuff in the form of Soul Reaver and Defiance remasters (and an all-new game, Ascendance, which is best not spoken about), and Deus Ex sprung back to life with a remaster everyone made fun of so much it got indefinitely delayed.

A bit of a mixed record, then, on putting those properties to use, but perhaps "external" studios can do better. I'm open to see more. I'm a simple man: you offer me more Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, and Saints Row (dare I hope we one day get a playable Saints Row 2 on PC?), I will at least be a little interested.

Cast your mind back to October 2024 and you may remember the time when Russia fined Google a website-breaking amount of money. Like grains of rice on a chessboard, a fine Russia levied against Google for blocking some pro-Kremlin channels had compounded to the point that Google 'owed' the country ₽2 undecillion. That's a two followed by 36 zeroes. That amount was later capped at a more generous ₽91.5 quintillion but, either way, it's more money than there is on Earth.

Which I suspect, as a tactic, was not much of a winner, as Russian courts have turned around and asked for a much more payable fine from EA, Take-Two, Battlestate, and NetEase (via Kommersant) for failing to localise the data of Russian gamers on domestic servers.

Law firm Semenov and Pevzner told Kommersant that Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, had filed lawsuits resulting in ₽2 million fines against the four companies, while three remaining lawsuits against Embracer Group, Digital Extremes, and Epic Games are yet to reach a conclusion.

Which is not a lot. At the time of writing, ₽2 million is about $27,000. If the court were to impose the maximum allowable fine against the three remaining companies—₽6 million—that would be just over $80,000.

That's couch-cushion money for companies at this scale, whose revenues are measured in the billions. In the unlikely event any of them were to pay, it would be tantamount to a rounding error on their balance sheets.

Perhaps this indicates that the fines themselves are not the point. A source spoken to by Kommersant suggests that the lawsuits are merely the beginning of a crackdown on foreign-made online games within Russia, a move which would likely redound at least somewhat to the benefit of homegrown games. For its part, Roskomnadzor says it has no such plans, but it would fit the country's previously documented attempts at "digital sovereignty".

Eidos Montreal has imposed another round of layoffs, announcing today that 124 employees have been put out of work. Longtime studio head David Anfossi has also left, although it's unclear at this point whether he resigned or was also laid off.

"The reduction in workforce affecting 124 employees is a result of changing project needs and impacts across production and support teams," the studio wrote on LinkedIn. "Today is a difficult day for our studio and reflects the need to adapt and concentrate efforts where Eidos-Montréal can be most effective."

Eidos Montreal previously laid off employees in December 2025, and reportedly cancelled an undisclosed number of projects in the studio, shifting its focus to co-development of Grounded 2, led by Obsidian, and Playground Games' Fable reboot. The studio had previously laid off roughly 75 people in March 2025, and another 97 employees in January 2024, when it also reportedly cancelled a new Deus Ex game.

The studio also said it is "parting ways" with Anfossi, who served as producer on Deus Ex: Human Revolution in 2011 and moved up to head of studio for games including Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, the Thief reboot, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Marvel's Avengers. "We thank David for his contributions and wish him the best in his future endeavors," Eidos Montreal wrote.

The layoffs at Eidos Montreal are the latest in a seemingly endless parade of cuts at studios of all sizes that have plagued the game industry since 2023: March alone has seen more than 1,000 people let go from Epic Games, 105 at Ubisoft's Red Storm studio, an undisclosed number at Amazon, and 20 at Eidos Montreal's sister studio Crystal Dynamics. The Embracer website says the studios employ 582 people between them, although it's not clear how current that figure is. A CDE Entertainment rep said the number of remaining staff will be made available to the public in a few weeks.

For a brief period in the early 2000s, RedOctane was a big deal. It peaked in 2005 as the publisher of Guitar Hero, leading Activision to acquire it the following year, but just a few years after that the ride was over: Amidst massive market oversaturation and flagging interest among players, Activision shuttered the whole thing in 2010.

That was the end of the tale until 2025, when Embracer brought RedOctane back, with the slightly modified handle RedOctane Games, to deliver "the next evolution in rhythm gaming." Which as it turns out is not Guitar Hero but, man, it sure looks like Guitar Hero.

Okay, it's definitely more Rock Band than Guitar Hero, but RedOctane had nothing to do with Rock Band, which was developed by Harmonix after it parted ways with RedOctane following the Activision buyout. Harmonix also developed the first couple iterations of Guitar Hero, while RedOctane served as publisher and also manufactured the little guitar-shaped controllers used to play the game.

Rock Band was also very much like Guitar Hero except it had drums, so your unreliable, less-talented friends could play too. (Yes, that's a drummer joke.) The point is that as "next evolutions" go, we don't appear to be moving ahead in leaps and bounds here.

Here's Rock Band—forgive the video quality, it was 18 years ago. (God, I feel old.)

"Stage Tour is a rhythm-action game designed to blend familiar and accessible note-highway gameplay with new and exciting modern twists," the Stage Tour Steam page says, without delving into what those new and exciting modern twists might be.

"Stage Tour is poised to rekindle the flame of plastic-instrument rhythm gaming with numerous new features and gamemodes, dozens of bandmates and instruments to fit your unique style, a deep competitive spine, and an extensive roadmap of seasonal content and live events."

There's more to be gleaned from a blog post on the Stage Tour website, which confirms that Stage Tour is a "band game" (although it will be playable solo as well), says signups for a closed alpha test are on the way, and points to a release for the holiday season. Perhaps cognizant of how the rhythm game genre was wrung out like a wet rag the first time around, RedOctane has also already committed to not making Stage Tour 2, saying the game "is not about a sequel treadmill. It is about building something for the long haul."

The very big and obvious question is whether there's enough of an appetite for a new Rock Band-like to sustain RedOctane's ambitions for "regular special events" and other live service features—the whole "long haul" thing the studio is building toward. My thoughts flash immediately to Harmonix's 2016 crowdfunding campaign for a PC version of Rock Band 4, which barely made it halfway to its goal by the time it was over.

But Rock Band 4 was already available on consoles at that point (the series ultimately never made it to PC), and rhythm game exhaustion was still firmly set in back then. 10 years down the road, there's clearly some level of enthusiasm for a new(ish) Rock Band game, but it's impossible to gauge what it will add up to on release date, especially since there's been nothing announced about pricing or song availability.

For now, if you've been hankering for a return of Guitar Hero or Rock Band, you'll probably want to pay attention, and if you're just idly curious you can add it to your wishlist on Steam and see what happens.

Elias Toufexis has done a lot of work over the years, but to us he will always be known first and foremost as the voice of Adam Jensen, the hero of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, the best two-part videogame trilogy ever made. He didn't ask for this, but that's just how it goes when you turn in an S-tier performance in a sequel to one of the most iconic videogames of all time.

Alas, the durability of that performance does not mean that we'll be seeing Toufexis-as-Jensen returning anytime soon. After wrapping up 2025 with a message on X outlining projects he has coming in 2026, including Marathon and three others that are under NDA, he concluded,"No Deus Ex, because the people in charge are psychopaths."

That's a bold statement, but one I'm not inclined to argue with: If you can finish Jensen's Deus Ex trilogy, and choose not to, what other conclusion am I expected to reach? Speaking to PC Gamer, Toufexis clarified that he doesn't actually think the people in charge at Eidos Montreal and Embracer Group are literally psychopaths, just that it's wild how they're leaving one of the best-known franchises in the game industry to lie in a ditch.

"I was just kidding about 'psychos' in the sense that they're crazy to not make another game," Toufexis said. "I did directly pitch them to make an animated series with me producing and co-writing with a huge writer and popular videogame guy (I've recently sold a different animated series so it's something we know how to do) and they also said no. Because they're crazy."

As a long-suffering Deus Ex fan, it sucks to hear that we're going another year without a new game in the series, but fortunately for Toufexis he has other things to keep him occupied in the meantime. He had a prominent role as L'ak n Star Trek: Discovery, has appeared in games including The Outer Worlds 2, Hell Is Us, and MindsEye (hey, they can't all be winners), and is currently serving as the voice director on Bungie's upcoming Marathon, in which he will also appear as Void and Rook.

Marathon hasn't had the smoothest pre-release run, but a recent 'second reveal' highlighting numerous changes made to the game since its less-than-stellar debut in 2025 has some followers thinking that a real turnaround might be in the offing. Toufexis said the dev team "is working really hard, and they're really big on player input," and that they're feeling some of that excitement too.

"I don't want to speak for the whole company, because I only know the game and the team," Toufexis said. "But we are all very confident in the product. The world building, the lore, the visuals, and the acting in the game are spectacular.

"After that recent behind-the-scenes video came out, you can see how people are getting really excited again."

Marathon is set to come out in March 2026—a specific release date hasn't been announced yet—and is aiming for the $40 price point popularized by hit shooters like Helldivers 2 and Arc Raiders. As for a new Deus Ex game, well, maybe 2027 will be our year.

It appears that Embracer-owned studio Eidos Montreal has suffered another round of layoffs, as numerous now-former employees have said on LinkedIn that they were put out of work last week.

As first reported by Insider Gaming, the layoffs impacted people in a wide range of roles—at least a dozen in total, according to a message posted by presentation director Timothé Lapetite. "Eidos-Montréal got served with one of those Mondays," he wrote in a message posted last week. "We had to part ways with some incredible talent due to *gestures at everything*."

Sources also told the site that most projects in the studio have also been cancelled, and that it is now focused on co-developing projects including Grounded 2, led by Obsidian, and the Fable reboot being headed up by Playground Games. Neither Eidos nor parent company Embracer Group (yes, it's an Embracer studio) have confirmed the layoffs or responded to requests for comment.

This would be the second round of layoffs at Eidos Montreal in 2025, following a cut of roughly 75 employees in March. The studio previously laid off 97 workers, and cancelled an unannounced Deus Ex game it had in development in early 2024.

The layoffs seemingly reflect ongoing troubles at Embracer, which fell into a deep hole in 2023 with the collapse of a $2 billion financing deal that resulted in multiple studio closures and nearly 1,400 layoffs as of February 2024, a number that has grown considerably since.

Embracer announced the end of its subsequent restructuring in March 2024 following the sale of Gearbox to Take-Two Interactive (for far less than half of what it paid for the studio in 2021, it bears noting) yet layoffs and closures continued almost completely unabated. In May of this year, Embracer announced another round of restructuring; Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal's partner studio in Embracer's "operative groups" structure, has undergone three rounds of layoffs itself in 2025.

The games industry's biggest fire sale continues, as Embracer Group has sold Star Trek Online developer Cryptic Studio and publisher Arc Games, which also handled publishing duties for games like Remnant 2, Torchlight, and the recently released old-school MMO Fellowship.

The buyer is Project Golden Arc, which is owned and led by members of Arc Games' management. The deal—which is worth $30 million, has been financed by XD Inc, perhaps best known as the developer and publisher of the free-to-play Torchlight Infinite.

Embracer will retain the publishing rights to the popular, Soulslike-infused shooters Remnant: From the Ashes and Remnant 2. These will be transferred to THQ Nordic, which already owns the IP rights and Remnant's developer Gunfire Games. The rights to Fellowship are also being transferred, but these will be handed over to Satisfactory developer and publisher Coffee Stain, which will be spun off from Embracer to become a publicly traded company on December 11.

"This transaction supports our key priorities by strengthening our focus on strategic assets and core IPs in Embracer while improving profitability and free cash flow," Embracer CEO Phil Rogers said in a statement. " The deal also allows online multiplayer game Fellowship, developed by a talented external team in Stockholm, to find a great home within Coffee Stain Group. I would like to thank the teams at Arc and Cryptic for their hard work over the past four years and wish them all the best as we are confident they will thrive and develop in the years ahead."

Both Arc Games and Cryptic were purchased by Embracer back in 2021, during its apparent effort to hoover up half the games industry into one giant, private equity vacuum bag. But it all went wrong when Embracer failed to secure a "groundbreaking strategic partnership" worth $2 billion, after which Embracer laid off thousands of people, closed studios like Volition, Piranha Bytes and Pieces Interactive, and cancelled several projects, which reportedly included a new Deus Ex.

Interestingly, Embracer specifically held onto Arc Games, which was previously known as Gearbox San Francisco, when it sold the Borderlands developer to 2K Games last year. That makes this the second time Embracer has clung onto the publishing rights for the Remnant series, which are decent games for sure, but not massive sellers.

That was a month before Embracer sold Saber Interactive, developer of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Space Marine 2 went on to be an absolutely enormous success, which you'd think Embracer would have liked to be a part of. But it doesn't matter, because Embracer has revived defunct Guitar Hero publisher RedOctane in a cunning plan to revive the plastic peripheral era of rhythm games. What could possibly go wrong?

For the third time this year, Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics has laid off employees: The company announced today that it's making a "difficult but necessary" reorganization of its studios and team, and that as a result nearly 30 people will be put out of work.

The cuts will be made "across various departments and projects," Crystal Dynamics said on LinkedIn, "as we restructure the company and business for our next generation."

"To our players—as the realities of the industry continue to evolve, we've made these painful choices as a way to optimize the continued development of our flagship Tomb Raider game, as well as shaping the rest of the studio to make new games for the future. We appreciate the continued support of our players, our colleagues, and our partners during this transition and look forward to sharing the team's amazing new work with the world in the future."

This is, as noted, the third time Crystal Dynamics has laid off employees in 2025. The first round of cuts occurred in March, when the studio ditched 17 people—also a "difficult decision"—in order to "better align our current business needs and the studio's future success." Then in August, it terminated an undisclosed number of employees following Microsoft's cancellation of the Perfect Dark reboot, which it was co-developing alongside The Initiative.

And now this, nearly 30 more out the door—not a huge number compared to say, the 9,000 that Microsoft axed in July, but a not-insignificant portion of a studio that has to be working pretty close to the bone by now. And, I have to note, with nothing to show for it at this point: Crystal Dynamics announced the new Unreal Engine 5-powered Tomb Raider project in 2022, but all we've seen of it since was a single piece of utterly unremarkable concept art released in early 2024.

The Deus Ex remaster has met a chilly response from PC gamers thanks to the baffling liberties it's taking with the landmark RPG's art style. If that weren't enough, its $30 price tag ($26 for preorders) only looks more ridiculous when you consider that the entire mainline series⁠—Deus Ex, Invisible War, Human Revolution, and Mankind Divided⁠—can be had for less than $10 on Steam⁠. I'm not including Mankind Divided's throwaway DLC or the port of dumpy tablet prequel The Fall in this calculation. Sorry to all five Deus Ex: The Fall fans.

The announcement of Deus Ex Remastered made me very sad, a moment of genuine joy and surprise immediately deflated by the piece of work on offer. No one sets out to make a bad game, but I wonder what led to its seemingly sorry state, and if anyone at Aspyr, Eidos Montreal, or Embracer is surprised at the response.

It looks like Deus Ex remade in its 2004 sequel, Invisible War, a "what-if" Doom 3 mod recreation of the levels, or, indeed, if the the infamous, long-dead Project HDTP was unleashed like a mummy's curse⁠—HDTP may have a genuine claim to being the first laughably bad retro game "HD texture" rework.

All the footage and screenshots of the remake show a game that eviscerates the original's memorable vision of the mid-21st century, replacing it with shiny, aggressively normal-mapped surfaces lifted straight from the OG Xbox/360 era, and character models who wandered in from Xavier Renegade Angel.

The Steam/GOG versions of Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition are priced at $7, but it feels like every time I've ever checked the Steam store page, it's been on sale for exactly 91 cents (seriously, it's always 91 cents). Other $30 remasters offer genuinely enticing features and upgrades, like Nightdive's System Shock 2 remaster which folded in and expanded the work of modders, is faithful to the original art direction, and resurrects the game's primeval co-op multiplayer.

Aspyr's own Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition boasts high resolution UI scaling, game pad and Steam Deck support, and upscaled textures that, while a minimal upgrade, at least leave the original art style intact. That's also in contrast to an original game that's $20 on GOG, and not available at all on Steam.

The benefit of making a classic available on more platforms and for more players is undercut by how horribly the visuals have been mangled. The fact that the entire series of original games is not only regularly on sale for less than $10, but literally right as this questionable remaster is announced, only further undermines the product.

PC gamepad and Steam Deck support are already available through mods like Revision and the Deus Ex Randomizer⁠—the former of which is often debated in the community (I'm a purist, myself), but which I think is still an undeniably more appealing and more faithful visual remaster than the upcoming official product. If you want to jump into the series for the first time, it's not difficult to get these games running on modern hardware: We have a full guide on how to have the best Deus Ex-perience in the 2020s.

I don't want to be callow or flippant when it comes to the work that's been put into the remaster, but someone in Aspyr, Eidos Montreal, or Embracer leadership should have had the sense not to reveal the project in its current state, much less put a $30 price tag on it. Deus Ex deserves that much.

Borderlands 4 is finally here and the reaction is… well, mixed. Players mainly seem irked by a slew of performance issues on PC, though stuff like 2K's overbearing terms of service haven't helped either. But it's easy to get too negative: the patches will flow, Gearbox will improve the performance, and we'll be left with another Borderlands game. Which means a billion guns, gorgeous looks, and some questionable humor. Kotaku has already noticed one joke, however, that seems like a straight-up dig at Embracer Group, former owners of Gearbox.

One early game location is called "Embracer's Bluff", a run-down place crammed with garbage and containing two rather pointed side quests. The first involves a murderous vending machine that kills a would-be customer, while the second is centred on a talking AI-powered toilet that everyone hates. The cherry on top is the ruler of Embracer's Bluff, who seemingly lives in a hot tub surrounded by dildos.

This would be a clear enough dig at Embracer Group, but Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford basically said in the runup to release that Borderlands 4's story was in some ways inspired by the company's acquisition by the Embracer Group, and subsequent re-sale to Take-Two after everything went wrong for Embracer.

"There’s this cultural and emotional shift in me, personally, and at the studio," said Pitchford. "What does it mean to trade some autonomy for organization? What does it feel like to move up and down the scale between autonomy and being organized or even being controlled?"

Whoa there Randy. The necessary context for all of this is that Embracer Group is a company that gorged itself on venture capital and swallowed endless established studios and franchises, including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Dead Island, and The Lord of the Rings among others. Then it all went wrong and Embracer embarked on an utterly brutal round of mass layoffs and studio closures.

Gearbox was part of this: it was acquired by Embracer Group in 2021 for $1.3 billion, before being sold back to 2K after three years for… drum roll please… $460 million. Now that's how to waste a shitload of money.

Hence the name of this Borderlands 4 location. Embracer's Bluff seems a straightforward reference to the fact that Embracer's massive acquisition spree was based on bluffing, throwing vast sums of cash around and promising jam tomorrow: which all worked until a mysterious $2 billion deal fell through and the wheels came off. In the centre of Embracer's Bluff sits a large pile of trash that people sift through. Say what you will about Borderlands: the humor is always on-the-nose.

Fool that I am, I actually got my hopes up when Embracer Group acquired the rights to Deus Ex. Not because I'm a massive mark for the consolidation of capital, but because it talked a big game about wanting to make a whole bunch of Deus Ex stuff, in contrast to previous owner Square Enix. Perhaps we'd finally get a conclusion to the Adam Jensen trilogy? Maybe a Deus Ex 1 remaster? Dare I say it, could we even see something done with my beloved Invisible War?

No. As we're all well-aware, Embracer promptly shot its kneecaps off with a dead-in-the-water $2 billion deal that saw it laying off staff, shuttering projects, and flogging intellectual property left and right. The future of Deus Ex winked out, leaving us here, alone, bereft.

Still, chin up—there's a consolation prize. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided co-composer Sascha Dikiciyan (whose nom de synth is Sonic Mayhem) has put out a whole bunch of music he made for the game that ended up not getting used (via VGC).

"Between 2015–2016, I composed a large body of music for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and its DLCs," writes Dikiciyan. "The official soundtrack featured a curated selection, but much of what I wrote for the game—including cues for cinematics, trailers, in-game clubs, as well as drafts, ideas, and even demos—never made it beyond the official release. Until now."

Dikiciyan calls the collection Fragments of the Machine [Data Archive Vol 1], and it contains 10 unused tracks for Mankind Divided that I'm probably going to end up adding to a writing playlist.

"These audio files come directly off my original drive, complete with the authentic arrangement names I gave them at the time. Some are unmixed, unmastered, and even unfinished… After seeing how much people still connect with that universe, I wanted to share them as a gift to the community before the release of Metal Eden."

Metal Eden, by the by, is a new sci-fi FPS from Ruiner dev Reikon. Dikiciyan composed music for the game and—wouldn't you know it?—it's out today.

Anyway, my favourite track on Fragments of the Machine is "DeusEx_MD_DespMeasures_Ambient#2_beta4", both because of the catchy title and, more importantly, because its warbly boops and bips put me in mind of Deus Ex 1's UNATCO theme, which is my personal national anthem.

It's hard not to be a tad morose listening to these tracks, though. On a long-enough timeline, anything can happen, but I feel like Deus Ex is dead for the foreseeable future*. Heck, Adam Jensen voice actor Elias Toufexis was out and about telling people that Eidos had explicitly asked him to stop talking about Adam Jensen early last year. At least we'll always have the synths.

*Cue someone announcing a big Deus Ex project just to make me look dumb. I'd be fine with that, honestly.

Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics has imposed another round of layoffs, putting an undisclosed number of people out of work in the face of "evolving business conditions."

"Today we made the very difficult decision to part ways with a number of our talented colleagues as the result of evolving business conditions," the studio announced in a message posted on LinkedIn. "This decision was not made lightly. It was necessary, however, to ensure the long-term health of our studio and core creative priorities in a continually shifting market."

This is the second round of layoffs for Crystal Dynamics, which put 17 people out of work in March, cuts that were also made to ensure "the studio's future success." Crystal Dynamics took another hit in July when Microsoft cancelled the Perfect Dark reboot as part of its layoff of roughly 9,000 employees across its company.

That project was being led by The Initiative, which was closed following the cancellation, but Crystal Dynamics came on board as co-developer in 2021, and the cancellation appears to be at least partly responsible for these layoffs: Multiple employees who have been let go by the studio specified in their LinkedIn profiles that they were working on the Perfect Dark reboot, and one, narrative designer Leilan Nishi, said her layoff came "in the aftermath of Perfect Dark's cancellation."

The Embracer-owned studio said people who no longer had jobs as a result of the cuts will be offered "the full extent of support and resources at our disposal," and thanked remaining employees and fans for their "continued support as we build a creative, sustainable, and resilient tomorrow together." It also confirmed that "the future of Tomb Raider" will not be impacted by the cuts.

The future of Tomb Raider is also kind of unclear, however. The 'Unified Lara' art released in early 2024 seemed to suggest that something was in the works, and the new-look Lara has since appeared in Pinball FX and World of Tanks, but there's been no subsequent word of when to expect an actual new Tomb Raider game. The most recent, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, was released in 2018.

The layoffs at Crystal Dynamics feel similar to recent cuts seen at Romero Games, which cancelled an in-development FPS and laid off employees after losing funding for the project: Not part of Microsoft, but still forced to let people go as a result of Microsoft's deep cuts.

But that industry instability has also helped fuel a push for increased unionization: Just today, more than 450 people on the Diablo development team at Microsoft-owned Activision Blizzard voted to unionize, in part a response to the lack of job stability and near-constant threat of mass layoffs. The past few months have also seen Blizzard's World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 teams form unions, as has Microsoft-owned Bethesda Game Studios.

I've reached out to Crystal Dynamics parent company Embracer to ask how many people have been let go and will update if I receive a reply.

15 years after being shuttered by Activision, original Guitar Hero publisher RedOctane is back, with the slightly changed name of RedOctane Games and now a part of catastrophe conglomerate Embracer Group. The revived studio is being headed up by Simon Ebejer, the production director on numerous Guitar Hero games developed by Neversoft, and also has original RedOctane founder Charles and Kai Huang on board as advisors.

The "small but passionate studio" is made up of "creators and developers who helped create and scale Guitar Hero and DJ Hero nearly two decades ago," the press blast says, "as well as proven emerging development talent and community leaders from across today’s rhythm gaming space."

And yes, it is working on a new rhythm game, which original RedOctane vice president Lee Guinchard—now CEO of Embracer's Freemode group, of which the new RedOctane Games is a part—said is going to be different.

"This game won’t be Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, Guitar Freaks or Rock Band," Guinchard wrote. "This is something new. A rhythm game built with love, by people who care, with the community at its core in this fast-changing modern world we live in. We firmly believe the expert here is the community and a new generation of development talent, the folks that have kept the lights on these last few years."

Guitar Hero debuted as a PlayStation 2 exclusive in 2005 and quickly became a full-on phenomenon, spawning multiple sequels, tie-ins with Aerosmith, Metallica, and Van Halen, and the DJ Hero and Band Hero spinoff games. But by 2010, which saw the underwhelming release of Guitar Hero 5 and DJ Hero 2, it was over: Activision took one more shot at it with Guitar Hero Live in 2015, which went nowhere, and that was the end of it.

RedOctane followed a similar path. Founded in 1999 as a gaming accessory manufacturer, it was acquired by Activision in 2006 for just shy of $100 million—a paltry sum now, but big bucks at the time—and was closed in 2010.

Despite that unfortunate outcome—which, to be fair, was driven by Activision's relentless insistence on annualized sequels, in hindsight probably not a great idea for games dependent on expensive speciality controllers—Ebejer has high hopes for the revived brand. "Rhythm games are about more than just gameplay, they’re about feel, flow, and connection to the music and to each other," he said. "RedOctane Games is our way of giving back to a genre that means so much to us, while pushing it forward in new and exciting directions."

RedOctane's new, different rhythm game is expected to be revealed later this year.

In these trying economic times, it is tempting to visit the website LinkedIn.com in search of gainful employment in the videogame business. On that dread portal one can find an endless parade of hucksters and hustlers promising they're guarding the secret to success: a guaranteed six-figure career is just one $299.99 seminar away!

Here on the trusty ship PC Gamer we make no such outlandish promises, instead offering more practical advice: How to get laid off from whatever games industry job you already have.

The array of techniques assembled below is so wide-ranging, we're confident that anyone—from an enthusiastic 23-year-old graduate just weeks into their dream role, to a 30-year veteran beloved for their unending willingness to share decades of accrued knowledge and experience—can find the path to joblessness that's just right for them.

With these tried and true methods, a little grit and plenty of hard work, you too will be able to join the ranks of the approximately 35,000 wondering if they'll be able to afford rent, provide for their families, or find fulfillment in their chosen craft, which generates well over $100 billion in revenue each year.

PC Gamer's definitive (but by no means exhaustive) list of ways to lose your job in the videogame industry—guaranteed!

1. Work at a company whose "platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger"
2. Make a game that does so well that it's called a "break out hit" by the company that hired you to make it
3. Work for a publisher that decides your game is dead less than three months after your boss insists "the game is absolutely not dying"
4. Follow up a critically acclaimed game about skateboarding with a critically acclaimed game about rollerblading before your publisher decides it needs to "rationalize its pipeline"
5. Make a game that doesn't do well, probably because of decisions made by your boss, boss's boss, and/or boss's boss's boss
6. Help make a game as successful as Marvel Rivals, but as part of a team that does not fit into new plans for "optimized development efficiency"
7. Work at a studio that gets acquired for over $60 billion dollars, none of which ends up in your pocket
8. Endure executive pressure that forces your studio into making a game it isn't well-suited to (it is then shut down)
9. Work at a studio that can't get funding despite being founded by an industry veteran
10. Work at a company that needs to become more flexible/agile/versatile under these trying economic conditions. (Meanwhile, your CEO might've spent $2 million on vintage cars)
11. Have a boss who wears a really bad hat on stage
12. Go on strike because your bosses want you to train your AI replacement
13. Fail to meet unrealistic sales expectations after your game has been de-prioritized and your studio mismanaged
14. Get hoovered up by a company whose spending spree turns out to be reliant on Saudi Arabia forking out $2,000,000,000 (and then it doesn't do that)
15. Believe a tech company that it's serious about funding games for its new platform that no one wants. (It will change its mind before you have enough time to finish a game)
16. Have a boss who declares that a leak of "non-public information" about your in-development game was so dire, the whole studio's gotta go
17. Uh oh, your CEO is high on AI! Should've seen that coming
18. Write the best character in a long-running and much beloved RPG series
19. Just, uh, write a character at all
20. Have the hubris to try to make a videogame. What were you thinking?

The man forever fated to be known as the creator of Deus Ex would like you to know that he did not, in fact, create Deus Ex. Not single-handedly, anyway. In a video marking the 25th (oh my god) anniversary of the first Deus Ex, Warren Spector emerged from his hermitage to wish everyone a very merry what a shame.

"I'm pleased and proud because, like every developer, I hoped to make something that lives on in people's minds for long… I never expected or even dared to hope that Deus Ex would be so long-lasting, yet here we are."

Spector is pretty emphatic about that "we": "You don't ship anything, let alone anything good, without a great team. The Deus Ex concept may have been mine, but the game itself, and all kudos aimed at it, belong to the great, great team that bought into a vision and made it a reality."

He's right, of course, and he's been banging this drum for a while. You might well have seen a now-memetic snippet of an interview Spector gave all the way back in 2001, where he's quoted as saying that "There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," right before being described as, you guessed it, the creator of Deus Ex.

Hell, I've probably done it myself in a few headlines. It's an easy shorthand and—to get defensive for a second—I think most readers are smart enough to know no one is really saying Spector created Deus Ex on his own in a garage like Tony Stark, but rather that he had a key leadership role.

But Spector's 100% right to acknowledge the contributions of the entire Deus Ex team, and namechecks a few of the leads—Harvey Smith, Chris Norden, Jay Lee, Sheldon Pacotti, and Alexander Brandon—without whom "there probably wouldn't have been a Deus Ex at all." Which is no world I want to live in, frankly.

"I'm proud as hell of the work they did back in 2000," says Spector, "but I'm at least as proud that we created something bigger than ourselves… We made a game that seems to have influenced games that followed, and we created a world people want to revisit over and over again. So here's to the next 25 years. See you in 2052!" 2052 being—if you've shamefully forgotten—the year Deus Ex is set.

It's always nice to see Spector, and Deus Ex—which will forever be one of the greatest games ever made—deserves its hoopla on a milestone anniversary. But I am curious if, you know, this means something, man. The Deus Ex YouTube channel on which Spector's birthday greetings were posted had been dormant for seven years until someone remembered the password (NSF001 / smashthestate) and uploaded the fancy PS2 version of the game's opening cutscene nine days ago. A few days after that, we got Spector's anniversary message.

Between this and the strange rebirth of Deus Ex's console version earlier this month, I can't help but wonder if the series is slowly twitching back to life. Like so many other things, it all went to hell in the wake of Embracer's collapsed $2 billion deal, which scuppered no end of projects including, reportedly, a new Deus Ex, but I'm curious if these signs point to the series coming back in some way. A new game? Probably not. At least not yet. But hey, if Embracer wants to hand the OG (and Invisible War, while we're at it) over to Nightdive to work its magic? I'd be a happy man. I've been looking for an excuse to reinstall.

There are big changes afoot at Embracer Group, which has announced that company CEO Lars Wingefors is stepping down from the role. But he's not leaving! Instead, Wingefors is set to become the executive chair of the board, where he will focus on—believe it or not—"capital allocation, M&A [mergers and acquisitions], and strategy."

"With the start of this new phase, I am thankful for the years and lessons learned as CEO of Embracer," Wingefors said in today's announcement. "While the road has not always been straight, I am incredibly proud of the achievements made possible by our talented teams, which have created some incredible experiences for gamers.

"This new phase allows me to focus on strategic initiatives, M&A, and capital allocation, ensuring Embracer's continued growth and success. I am more convinced than ever that the best is still ahead of us."

This shift to a new role is notable because Wingefors' tenure as CEO of Embracer has been, at least from an outside perspective, decidedly not great. Embracer Group was riding high for a few years, throwing around mountains of money to hoover up some big-name game companies, but the wheels came off in 2023 when a $2 billion investment deal fell apart at the last minute.

Suddenly there was no more money, and it turned out the whole thing was an unsustainable house of cards: Studios were sold off or closed outright, and nearly 1,400 people were put out of work over a six month stretch.

Embracer announced the end of its restructuring in 2024, yet layoffs continued apace: Eidos Montreal, Crystal Dynamics, Cryptic, and Lost Boys Interactive have all suffered layoffs since then, and Piranha Bytes and Pieces Interactive have been shuttered. Earlier this year, Embracer announced a new round of restructuring, spinning off its Coffee Stain groups into "a standalone group of community-driven game developers and publishers by the end of calendar year 2025."

Wingefors' move into the executive chair position may not be a sure thing: It is "proposed," and must be voted on at Embracer's annual general meeting in September. How likely it is that the proposal will be shot down by Embracer shareholders I cannot say—I mean, I know which way I'd vote, but I'm not a Big Business Understander and thus don't really know how this sort of thing ends up being put on the table in the first place.

It's worth noting, however, that the proposal to make Lars Wingefors the executive chair of Embracer was made by Lars Wingefors AB, an investment firm that's far and away the largest shareholders in Embracer. Make of that what you will.

Regardless of how that shakes out, Wingefors is definitely out as CEO. He'll be replaced on August 1 by Phil Rogers, currently the CEO of the Crystal Dynamics—Eidos and Plaion groups, and deputy CEO of Embracer.

Alright, alright. I know this website is called PC Gamer. I am aware, dimly, that the PlayStation 5 is not a PC. A thing that is even less a PC? The PS2. And yet here I am, writing about a PS2 game arriving on PS5.

In my defence, that game is literally Deus Ex, the most PC game to ever PC game, and I can't help but find its arrival on Sony's iconically yonic console via PS+ (its not-quite-Game-Pass service) alternately mystifying and thrilling. In the year 2025, Sony has resurrected one of the most curious artefacts of the early 2000s—the version of Deus Ex that Ion Storm ginned up for the PS2 back in 2002.

It's a strange beast: in many ways, an anticipation of (the unfairly maligned) Deus Ex: Invisible War on Xbox. Hemmed in by console memory limits, its familiar levels were strange, stunted versions of themselves. They'd been chopped down and split apart by loading screens to fit into the PS2's cramped brain. Codes auto-inputted themselves in keypads and computers, location-based damage was swapped out for a uniform health bar (no more blowing your legs off with a LAM), and there was no quick-inventory along the bottom of your screen.

It was a worse version of Deus Ex, in other words. Though to be fair, some parts of the game were upgraded—depending on your point of view—in the transition. The main theme got a fully orchestral rendition. So orchestral, in fact, that you can hear the conductor give some sort of faint bark right at the track's cut-off. Character models also got a tweak, giving JC Denton the gift of an actual human neck.

Oh, and the PC version's cutscenes, which on our platform consist of two UE1 models shuffling facial polygons at each other, were remixed into full-on CG cutscenes. At one point Walton Simons' mouth curls into a smile, a thing it is congenitally unable to do in-engine.

I'm not sure anyone should actually play it unless they have literally no other option. I certainly wouldn't recommend it as anybody's first introduction to Deus Ex. And yet, I am glad to see Sony yank it incomprehensibly from the dustbin of history. It's worth preserving for archival purposes, if nothing else.

But also, I can't help but nurse that faint ember of hope that says maybe the Embracer Group—a pox upon its house—might be emerging from its post-'Saudi Arabia (reportedly) decided not to give us billions of dollars' hangover and actually doing something with the vast trove of intellectual property it amassed over the course of its acquisitive binge. You know, things like reaching back in the archives for all its series' weird offshoots and making them available on modern systems—the kind of thing a recently chastened company might do with a vault full of property rights it's skittish about making big bets on.

If that's the case, then all to the good. Do I trust Embracer to do anything interesting with a new Deus Ex? No. But I would like to see, for instance, its estranged PS2 half-brother arrive on our shores, or a version of Invisible War that's actually playable. It's better than letting them rot in the past.

We're in a smoky, dimly-lit boardroom. Sitting around a table are sallow-faced executives sniffing wads of cash. The cash is on fire. The videogame industry is on fire. Embracer has just made another completely ridiculous decision while it kicks the corpse of Thief, one of PC gaming's most important and influential series.

Nothing Embracer Group ever does makes a lick of sense. The Swedish holding company, formerly Nordic Games, rapidly grew between 2013 and 2023 as it gobbled up just about every stray game property it could get its hands on. And little good has come from it.

It swallowed up THQ, grabbed Deep Silver, snatched Coffee Stain Studios, and it just kept going. Studios, publishers, long-dead yet still beloved games—it was throwing money all over the place. In 2022, it made a deal with Square Enix and spent $300 million on Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal.

That's how it managed to pilfer Thief.

Shortly after the Square Enix deal, Embracer got into a spot of bother. A number of its acquisitions had come to nothing, it rarely seemed to know what to do with the treasures it had looted, and a gargantuan $2 billion investment deal fell through. Its share price dropped dramatically and the restructuring began.

Cancellations, layoffs, studio closures. In just a few months, nearly 1,000 people lost their jobs. It started selling rather than buying. But, unfortunately for us, it kept Thief. And that's why, yesterday, we were treated to an ugly trailer for Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow—one of the most disappointing reveals I've had the misfortune to witness since I started writing about games.

Embracer is not the kind of company you want determining the fate of anything you care deeply about. And I care a lot about Thief. It was a formative game for wee Fraser, and while its glory days are firmly in the past (25 or 21 years back, depending on how you feel about the actually extremely good Thief: Deadly Shadows), the impact it had on game development was gargantuan.

Look, you might not really care about immersive sims. Most people don't, judging by how poorly they tend to sell. But nothing encapsulates the giddy brilliance of gaming, and especially PC gaming, like these ridiculous creations. And from Thief we got some truly incredible, ambitious, uncompromising games: Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, Deus Ex, Dishonored—the GOATs.

And let's not forget its influence on stealth games: pretty much all of them. It's really where the genre properly began. And when you get excited about being able to do stuff like snuffing out a light in Assassin's Creed Shadows, you've got Thief to thank for it.

Since sneaky immersive sims aren't huge money-makers these days, it's often smaller studios taking on the risk, which is great, but I'm gonna be straight with you: I would rather have something a bit more polished, a bit easier on the eyes, and with some fancy tech to back it up. I want my cake and to eat it too.

A new Thief, then, obviously piqued my interest. Thief 4 was disappointing, and also more than a decade ago. I'm ready for someone to take another crack at it. But this? A fucking VR game? Come the hell on.

Look, VR is a gimmick. It's always a gimmick. It promises everything and delivers nothing. It was like this when I was a kid and it was the hot new thing, and this time around nothing has changed. Occasionally something kinda cool appears. Like Half-Life: Alyx. But I ain't restructuring my entire living room and strapping an uncomfortable headset on for the promise of a tiny handful of decent games that, frankly, still ain't all that.

And beyond the fact that it's a real bummer that I'd need to shell out for a niche bit of hardware to enjoy the new Thief, the really disappointing thing is that it just looks kinda rubbish. A large part of that, I'll admit, is just seeing those awful disembodied hands. It will never not look ridiculous. VR pretends that it's all about next-level immersion, but all the ways the vast majority of VR games have you interacting with the world—whether it's the tactile, fiddly things, or simple traversal—takes me right out of the game.

But there's also just the lack of any novelties on display. Using your rope arrow to climb up buildings or snuffing out light sources is classic Thief, so that's not the problem, but I can do that in any Thief game. What justifies this being imprisoned on VR headsets? What's the big idea? How is this pushing stealth forward in the way the classics did?

The answer, probably, is that it isn't. The hook is that it's a VR game. That's it. And that's a bloody terrible hook. It immediately massively limits who can enjoy the game and, let's face it, limits what it can really do. VR games by their nature are games full of sacrifices and concessions.

It's just another baffling call that suggests the people making these decisions don't really understand Thief, or care to understand it. There's just this property that they have lying around, doing nothing, so why not waste it on a VR game, long after most people stopped giving a shit about VR?

When your company is on fire and you've either laid off or sold off almost half of your nearly 16,000 employees, what's one more little cock-up? But as someone who actually loves Thief, and a lot of the games Embracer now controls, I'm pleading with it: stop. Just stop messing with games. Make terrible cars or something instead. Sell everything, get out of the industry, and please just leave us alone.

Embracer Group is undergoing yet another restructuring of its gigantic operations, this time announcing plans to spin-off the Coffee Stain part of the business as well as renaming the Lord of the Rings portion.

In 2024, Embracer announced it would split into three distinct companies across games. Asmodee handled tabletop and physical games; Coffee Stain managed indies and free-to-play titles; Middle-Earth & Friends took charge of the Lord of the Rings and other major licenses.

Now, Coffee Stain will become "a standalone group of community-driven game developers and publishers by the end of calendar year 2025." It's slightly unclear how this differs from last year's restructuring, but Coffee Stain manages somewhere in the region of 250 game developers and publishers worldwide, including the likes of Ghost Ship Games (Deep Rock Galactic) and Tuxedo Labs (Teardown).

"We're really proud of everything we've built as part of Embracer," says Coffee Stain CEO Anton Westbergh. "The games industry is more competitive than ever, but also more rewarding if you do things right, and we believe this move gives us the clarity and control to navigate the landscape better on our own terms."

"Coffee Stain Group has incredible talent, IPs and communities," says Group CEO of Embracer Lars Wingefors. "To date, it has been a true recipe for success. I am confident in Anton's strategy and leadership and see a clear long-term opportunity in attracting and enabling partnerships with like-minded independent game developers and talents."

As for the Middle-Earth & Friends side, not much is changing apart from the name. It'll now be known as Fellowship Entertainment, which I have to admit is a lot better, and "the strategy is to transform into one powerhouse group with game development and publishing at its core."

The press release also gives an idea of the dizzying scale Embracer is operating at. Fellowship Entertainment will have "approximately 6,000 employees across more than 30 countries" and will manage the commercial rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Fellowship Entertainment consists of more than 40 studios like 4A Games, Aspyr Media, Crystal Dynamics, Dark Horse, Eidos-Montréal, Limited Run Games, Middle-earth Enterprises, Milestone, PLAION, Tarsier Studios, and THQ Nordic. It also controls more than 300 other properties including the likes of Kingdom Come Deliverance, Metro, Dead Island, Killing Floor, Darksiders, Remnant and Tomb Raider.

Whatever else is going on in the name of restructuring, however, one figure remains at the core of all these companies. A note at the bottom of the press release says "the largest shareholder, Lars Wingefors AB, will, in connection with the name change to Fellowship Entertainment, establish a privately held holding company" named Embracer AB. It will have shares in Asmodee Group, Coffee Stain Group and Fellowship Entertainment, as well as "potentially other companies."

Embracer's role within the industry over recent years was described in a GDC survey in 2024 as "buying up large swaths of an industry" and "creating redundancies and placing innovative, more 'exploratory' studios in a position where they’ll never be seen as profitable enough for shareholders." In an industry where layoffs and studio closures are sadly commonplace, Embracer has been responsible for a significant chunk.

"As a leader and an owner, sometimes you need to take the blame and you need to be humble about if you've made mistakes and if you could have done something differently," said Wingefors in 2024, adding he's "sure I deserve a lot of criticism." But you know what really matters?

"I still feel I have the trust from many or all of my key entrepreneurs and CEOs that have joined the group," said Wingefors. "It's been difficult, but I think they all believed in the mission of Embracer."

This is a bit of a weird one: Two years after announcing its planned closure in the aftermath of the Embracer Group's $2 billion implosion, Campfire Cabal revealed today that it "was never shut down" at all, and that it is in fact working on a new addition to the Expeditions series of historical RPGs.

"If you follow the insider news, you are aware that it’s been a rough couple of years in the game industry," the studio wrote. "Investment dried up, studios shut down, countless developers lost their jobs, and games were cancelled left and right."

That's putting it mildly. A quick catch-up on how we got here: Campfire Cabal was founded in September 2022 under Embracer's THQ Nordic label to "focus on high-quality, narrative-driven RPGs." But less than a year later a massive investment deal fell through at the last minute, and Embracer's wings were suddenly and brutally clipped: Hundreds of people were laid off (although none of the executives responsible for the mess, of course) and numerous studios closed, including—apparently—Campfire Cabal.

"It is no secret that Embracer Group has recently entered restructuring," creative director Jonas Wæver wrote in August 2023. "As part of this restructuring process, THQ Nordic has been told to close Campfire Cabal. This decision was not related to the work we've been doing at the studio but was made from a purely financial standpoint."

Wæver said at the time that studio management and THQ Nordic "have not given up on Campfire Cabal," and that "we are still pursuing our options for finding a good resolution to this situation," although to my reading that came off almost entirely as forced optimism, especially given that his announcement was literally entitled "Studio Closure." And yet, here we are.

"Though we did have to say goodbye to many of our colleagues, the studio survived and a compact team continued the project we had started in 2022. At the end of March of 2025, we received the green light to scale back up and transition into full production," Campfire Cabal wrote today.

"We are extremely grateful that there were people within the group who fought to keep us alive through the turmoil, and that we can now emerge on the other side with renewed vigour."

Campfire Cabal also finally confirmed today that it's working on a new Expeditions RPG, something previously assumed but never officially announced, and that it was responsible for a surprise Expeditions: Rome patch that dropped in November 2024. Details weren't shared but, like previous games in the series, "it’s set in a new period of our history and in a new part of the world."

Less than a week after Crystal Dynamics laid off 17 employees "to better align our current business needs," Eidos Montreal has announced that it's letting go of "up to 75" employees, saying it doesn't currently have sufficient work to justify keeping them around.

"Today, we informed our studio staff that we are going to let go up to 75 valuable members, as one of our mandates is coming to an end," the studio said in a message posted to X. "It is not a reflection of their dedication or skills, but unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to entirely reallocate them to our other ongoing projects and services. These very talented, highly experienced experts are going to enter the employment market, and we are working to support them through this transition."

It's quite a turnaround from just a couple years ago, when Eidos Montreal was reportedly working as a support studio on the new Fable as well as a "recently rescoped" new property and, finally, a new Deus Ex game that was at that point "very very early" in development.

But that seeming good news didn't last: Eidos Montreal, along with Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix Montreal, had been acquired by Embracer in August 2022, but Embracer hit an iceberg less than a year later when a $2 billion investment deal, later revealed to be with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group, fell through. The studio didn't escape the fallout from Embracer's drawn out implosion, laying off 97 people in January 2024 and cancelling the new Deus Ex project.

That's what makes the Crystal Dynamics layoffs last week especially notable: It too is an Embracer studio, and while Embracer said in March 2024 that its restructuring process was coming to an end, 2024 saw the closure of Pieces Interactive and reported shutdown of Piranha Bytes, as well as layoffs at Lost Boys Interactive and Cryptic Studios. Kicking off 2025 with even more layoffs at more studios could be a sign that, restructuring or not, the company isn't done making cuts.

Eidos Montreal said in its layoff message that it remains "committed to deliver its other projects currently in development." I've reached out to Eidos Montreal and Embracer for comment and will update if I receive a reply.

Crystal Dynamics, which is currently working on a Perfect Dark reboot and a new Tomb Raider game, has announced the layoff of 17 employees.

"This morning, Crystal Dynamics made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by 17 talented team members," the studio said in a message posted to X. "We did not make this decision lightly. Ultimately, this step was necessary to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success. It is not a reflection of the dedication or ability of those affected."

The past five years have not been especially kind to Crystal Dynamics. Marvel's Avengers, the live service superhero game that debuted in 2020 (and CD's last big project), did poorly and was removed from sale just three years later. The studio itself, meanwhile, was acquired by Embracer in 2022, and while that ultimately put Tomb Raider back in the studio's hands, it also happened less than a year ahead of Embracer's infamous $2 billion "rough night" that saw numerous studios gutted and closed.

As game industry layoffs go, 17 isn't a huge number, at least when compared to the tens of thousands that have been put out of work over the past few years. That's obviously no comfort to the people who have been let go, nor does it seem like an especially good sign for a studio that by all appearances has plenty to do.

Crystal Dynamics is currently co-developing a reboot of Perfect Dark alongside The Initiative; it's also got a new Tomb Raider on the go, the first new addition to the series since Shadow of the Tomb Raider in 2018, although nothing's been heard about that since the reveal of character art in early 2024. It's also recently worked with Aspyr on remasters of older Tomb Raider games and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.

The studio said the layoffs will "not alter our current project plans."

Call me soft, but I'm still sad about the sudden, undignified death of Volition, the 30-year-old Saints Row studio that got executed by the Embracer Group after the latter's $2-billion mystery deal—pitched as a "groundbreaking strategic partnership"—collapsed at the last minute.

With Embracer scrambling to stay afloat and Volition's final game, a rebooted Saints Row, meeting a lukewarm critical and commercial response, the writing was on the wall for the developer that also made Red Faction and Descent back in the day.

It was a sad and shocking turn of events for such a storied studio. That is, unless you're Saber Interactive CEO—and former Embracer Group interim chief operating officer—Matthew Karch, who recently took the opportunity to put the boot into the dearly departed studio in a chat with Game File, held on Karch's private jet.

"The Saints Row team is gone," said Karch. "They were so expensive for what they were. They didn't know what they were building. They didn't have any real direction. It couldn't last. And so, who's going to fund them for the next game after that disaster?"

Which is, shall we say, an unsentimental assessment, but in the cold clear light of day I can't fault Karch's logic. Volition's final three games before it went to a farm upstate were Gat Out of Hell (co-developed with High Voltage), Agents of Mayhem, and the rebooted Saints Row. None of them met with critical or commercial success, and a storied legacy doesn't mean much to company bosses and shareholders who are getting tired of throwing good money after bad.

But Karch goes on. "It would be nice in an ideal world for everyone to have a job," says the CEO, but "the days of throwing money at games other than maybe the GTAs of the world is over." Instead, Karch reckons we're in a time that calls for ruthless efficiency: "This business needs to mature. If it doesn't, the whole business is in trouble. Unfortunately, that means layoffs."

Which certainly sounds like hardheaded business guy talk, but I can't help but note that Karch's judicious, unromantic cost-cutting only seems to extend to people who make a lot less than he and his fellow C-suite execs do.

When it comes to the devs at Volition, Karch is ready to swing the axe. When it comes to Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors, who bet so much of the future on that $2-billion deal that eventually collapsed (and which Karch confirms was with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group after years of silence from Embracer itself), Karch is quick to spring to his defence: "They made mistakes. Lars is a very, very trusting person. He's a good person… when [the Saudi deal] didn't get done, he fell on the sword in such a hard way." Wingefors remains CEO of Embracer. Volition is gone for good.

When Game File's Stephen Totilo asked Karch if, perhaps, some high-level heads should have rolled at Embracer, the CEO was nonplussed. "There are no bosses. That’s the problem. Embracer had no structure. So how are they going to have bosses? … Nobody was getting rich at Embracer. I mean, people had stock. But it's not like anyone was taking big cash payments… There was nobody, like, ‘Oh, the studio head is making eight million and he just fired 10 people who were making a hundred thousand dollars.'"

It's worth noting that this quote was delivered on Karch's own private jet, flown by Lars Wingefors' former pilot. You can see a photo of Karch grinning in front of it in the original piece.

So, perhaps it is the case that tough decisions had to be made about Volition; the studio hadn't made a great game in a long time and, at least until the revolution, this is an industry where you do have to make a profit in order to survive.

But Karch's statements seem like a prime example of the kind of executive doublethink that so many of us who don't make 6-figure salaries find so distasteful and unfair: when someone has to pay for a botched $2-billion deal, the C-suite is all too willing to make the hard choices that cost devs their livelihoods. But when someone suggests maybe the bosses who set up those deals might face a consequence or two? Well, no, that's just not how this works.

A long time ago (September 2021) in a galaxy far, far away (a PlayStation Showcase) the mad lads at Aspyr announced they were remaking Knights of the Old Republic, BioWare's brilliant Star Wars RPG from 2003. Which probably wasn't a great idea, because the project has spent the entire four years since then falling down the stairs and smashing into every step along the way.

First it was "delayed indefinitely" back in 2022, then Sony began scrubbing all reference to it off its own social media, then Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors straight-up refused to talk about it at a conference—like it was Voldemort or something—and then it showed faint flickers of life almost exactly a year ago, even if it was definitely delayed for at least one more year. Also, at some point in there it got taken off its original devs at Aspyr and handed over to new ones at Saber Interactive.

It's enough of a calamity to give Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 a run for its money, but fear not! Saber has returned for its annual reminder that the game is, despite appearances, still alive. In a chat with Game File, Saber CEO Matthew Karch confirmed that, yes, the KOTOR remake was still in development somewhere in its offices, but that the studio wants to let Disney take the lead on talking about it.

Meanwhile over on X, Saber CCO Tim Willits recently took the time to emphasise that "Everything that we have talked about is still in development," but that the studio will only "share information on upcoming games when we have something cool to share." Which isn't now, apparently, so I guess whatever Saber's been doing for the last four years is officially uncool.

I kid, of course. I'm no game dev, but it seems like the last few years have been no picnic for the KOTOR remake (or, indeed, anyone even tangentially associated with the Embracer Group), and I don't envy the devs the work they have ahead of them. Still, I do find it at least a little funny that a Star Wars game, of all things, has had to create a now-annual tradition of reminding everyone it's still alive.

And hell, I'm still curious how the whole thing will pan out. I've long been on the record that I would rather have a subtle remaster of OG KOTOR—with gamepad support and 4K resolutions—than a full-on remake, but I'll take what I can get. For KOTOR, there is no death, there is only the Force.

As reported by VGC, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is nearing two million units sold across all platforms just under two weeks after it hit one million on its launch day alone. This has apparently "reminded" developer Warhorse's parent company, The Embracer Group, that selling good games that people like and want to buy is an important part of the business.

“The success of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a reminder of our core⁠—to bring great products to the market,” Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors said in response to the news. “High-quality teams need to have the resources and the time to execute their visions. When you have the right teams, this trust benefits everyone, including gamers, employees, and shareholders. I am convinced that we will remain among the industry leaders in our core business verticals in the future.”

Which is the kind of observation that should seem obvious to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the industry, but is rapidly becoming a radical stance among the C-suite set as the experienced teams behind beloved games are forced to crunch on ill-considered projects outside their expertise or interest areas, then shut down when those games inevitably flop. Embracer's own Daedalic Entertainment had a good thing going making 2D adventure games before it was tasked with the now-infamous licensed triple-A action-adventure, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Daedalic has since laid off a third of its staff and pivoted away from developing its own games entirely.

The Embracer Group was one of the first major publishers to succumb to the still-ongoing games industry layoff crisis, while its many layoffs and cancellation of a new Deus Ex game particularly stung in the face of the conglomerate's multi-year industry spending spree, acquiring the likes of Gearbox (since sold to Take-Two) Saber (sold to Beacon Interactive), Dark Horse Comics, Eidos Montreal, Plaion, and more.

But if the novel idea that good videogames with sufficient time and investment behind them will sell well and be good for the business in the long run really sinks in, who am I to stay bitter about the past? Congratulations to Warhorse Studios on its massive sales success for a delightfully weird game, at least.

The finale of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided wasn't much-loved by fans, which was surprising because you'd think Deus Ex: Human Revolution would have lowered expectations. But it's like the classic bad restaurant joke, where the food's terrible and what's worse, the portions are small. Mankind Divided's climax wasn't just an underwhelming battle against a guy who seemed more like a miniboss—when the credits suddenly roll afterward you realize you're not going to get a second hub city and another dozen hours of hacking people's emails to find out if they're in the Illuminati or not. It's just over.

Mark Cecere, a writer on both Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, was recently interviewed by From Script to Life (via Kotaku), and agreed with much of the criticism of the ending. "It's definitely not finished," he said, explaining that final villain Marchenko was originally intended to be "the halfway boss" and after defeating him you'd get to travel to the augmented city of Rabi'ah. "He was never the brains behind the thing, right? He's the muscle. To me that's why it feels unsatisfying."

Mankind Divided had a rough time in development, with Eidos-Montréal splitting resources between the singleplayer campaign and a tacked-on multiplayer mode. "We had to chop the game up a lot because of studio problems and funding and all that stuff," Cecere says. "I don't disagree with most of the criticism, especially when it comes to the ending."

While the questions left hanging by Mankind Divided might have been answered by a sequel, the odds of actually getting one seem low. Eidos-Montréal instead went on to develop Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (speaking of games I'd love to see get a sequel) before being acquired by Embracer Group. While development of a new Deus Ex game apparently picked up at Embracer, a couple of years later it vanished in a sea of layoffs.

"I was not involved," Cecere says of the Deus Ex game in development under Embracer, "though I was in contact with people to try and get back in and be on the team. And then it went away. I would have loved to be there to finish it off, but so far no news since then."

A year after laying off an unspecified number of employees as part of a "comprehensive restructuring program" at parent company Embracer Group, Star Trek Online developer Cryptic Games appears to be cutting even more staff.

As reported by Game Developer, numerous Cryptic employees have said on LinkedIn that they will be laid off from the studio at the end of October. The number of people being put out of work isn't currently known, but it sounds like the cuts are significant.

"Unfortunately, October will be my last month at Cryptic Studios," character artist Amelia March wrote. "I and many of my talented coworkers have been impacted by the most recent layoffs at the company."

"Like many folks posting today, I now officially know my last date with Cryptic Studios," senior community manager Mike Fatum said in a separate post. Environment artist Gianna Rockwell also used the word "many" in her own post, writing, "Unfortunately at the end of the month, I will be part of the layoffs at Cryptic along with many of my other amazingly talented coworkers."

"I will be leaving Cryptic Studios at the end of this month," senior artist Mauricio Tejerina wrote. "I am part of a layoff along with other talented people who have become like family to me over the past 10 years."

Cryptic previously laid off employees in November 2023 amidst the Embracer implosion that followed the collapse of a $2 billion deal with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group. Somewhat unusually, word of those layoffs first came to light in October but weren't confirmed until the following month, and something similar may be happening this time around too: Other Cryptic employees, such as producer Julia Frederickson and QA employee Randy Habenicht, posted about being caught up in layoffs weeks ago. 

It's not clear whether these are all part of the same layoffs or separate rounds of cuts, but Fatum, the senior community manager, suggested even further back that at least some of these cuts may have been in the works for some time now: In a message posted in August, he wrote, "I'm looking for a new role, with a somewhat swiftly approaching deadline."

Embracer declined to comment on the reported layoffs.

Embracer studio Lost Boys Interactive has undergone a second round of layoffs, saying in a message posted to LinkedIn that it "has made the very difficult decision to reduce our overall headcount." 

"As a co-development partner studio, Lost Boys is directly influenced by the projects and priorities of our development clients," the studio said in the announcement. "The need to adapt to shifting market conditions within the videogame industry has required us to reassess our operations to align with the evolving needs of our business and our partners."

Lost Boys CEO Shaun Nivens said the decision to lay off employees was "difficult" and came "only after considering all other options."

The number of employees put out of work was not specified, but the studio said the layoff "impacts employees across several states." It sounds like the cuts went deep: Former LBI art director Francois Gilbert called it an "extensive layoff" on LinkedIn, while former lead character artist Daniel Zinck said his whole team were let go.

Lost Boys Interactive was founded in 2017 and has worked as a support studio on games including The Quiet Man, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Diablo 4, and Homeworld 3. It was acquired by Gearbox in 2022, thus making it a part of Embracer Group—Embracer having acquired Gearbox in 2021. When Embracer sold most of Gearbox to Take-Two Interactive earlier this year, Lost Boys didn't go with it but instead remained an Embracer studio.

These layoffs follow a previous round of cuts that occurred in January, when an unknown but seemingly significant number of people were let go in what the studio said at the time was a response to "headwinds facing the industry right now." That's a reference to the devastating contraction that's wracked the industry since the beginning of 2023, when studio executives—virtually all of whom remain employed—figured out that the spike in player counts and engagement seen during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic wasn't actually going to last forever.

Piranha Bytes, the German developer of the Gothic, Risen, and Elex RPGs, has reportedly been closed by parent company Embracer Group. The closure comes less than six months after Piranha Bytes said it was "in a difficult situation" but was still trying to find a way to move ahead with its next game in order to keep the studio open.

The closure was first reported by Polish gaming site CD Action, which quoted a former employee as saying the studio had been shuttered at the end of June after Embracer was unable to find a buyer. 

Shortly after that report came to light, former creative director Bjorn Pankratz, along with his wife and fellow Piranha Bytes veteran Jennifer, announced the launch of a new indie outfit called Pithead Studio. 

"We wanted to keep doing what we love," Pankratz said in the studio announcement video. "This seemed like the best way to do it."

The video makes no mention of Piranha Bytes, but a message posted on the Pithead Studio Discord points to an unhappy ending. 

"As you sure noticed, the gaming industry was not doing well last year," it states. "This was also the case for the Embracer Group, to which THQ Nordic and Piranha Bytes belong. A lot of studios had to close, thousands of people in the gaming industry worldwide lost their jobs. Sadly, Piranha Bytes was also affected by this."

A separate message notes that the Gothic, Risen, and Elex games remain the property of THQ Nordic, the Embracer brand under which Piranha Bytes operated, and Pithead Studio has no knowledge of, or influence over, what will happen to them in the future.

"All we know is that Alkimia Interactive from Spain is working on an Elex remake," Pithead said. "We are not included in the making of the remake in any form, and therefore have no influence on it. Therefore, we are as excited as you are and will follow it with curiosity."

Piranha Bytes wasn't a "big" studio but it did have deep roots in PC gaming. Founded in 1997, its first game was the 2001 fantasy RPG Gothic, and while it wasn't a huge hit, it established Piranha Bytes as a maker of ambitious Eurojank—the sort of games that tend to have small but very dedicated followings. That reputation was cemented over the years by two more Gothic RPGs, the Risen RPG trilogy, and two Elex games: The first Elex, for instance, "is the kind of weird, flawed RPG we don’t always get anymore," we wrote in our 2017 review, the kind of thing that "will appeal to die-hard RPG fans and few others." 

Embracer-owned THQ Nordic acquired Piranha Bytes in 2019, when Embracer's 'buy everything that isn't nailed down' spree was getting up to full speed, but it fell victim to the collapse of a $2 billion investment deal that resulted in hundreds of layoffs through 2023 and '24, and the closure of other studios including Volition, Free Radical, and Pieces Interactive.

A message posted on the Piranha Bytes website in January saying the studio was trying to find a partner for its new project has been removed. Via the Wayback Machine, that message was present as recently as June 2—all that remains now is the studio logo and contact information.

THQ Nordic declined to comment on the reported closure.

Struggling videogame conglomerate Embracer Group appears to be embracing the rise of artificial intelligence: In its latest annual report, the company laid out a strategy for incorporating AI in its future work, saying that the tech "has the capability to massively enhance game development by increasing resource efficiency" and "adding intelligent behaviors, personalization, and optimization to gameplay experiences."

The use of generative AI in game development is a touchy topic to say the least. Broadly speaking, a lot of creative types tend not to care for it to put it mildly, but high-priced executives really do; some people say it will inevitably put people out of work (you don't have to pay a machine to spit out a picture, after all), while others (again, high-priced executives) insist, to borrow a phrase, no it won't.

Regardless of where you come down on that particular divide, efforts to incorporate it into game development have faced significant criticism: Blizzard recently went so far as to reassure gamers that it's not using generative AI in World of Warcraft. But that's not putting off Embracer, which said the rapid development of large language models (LLMs) has resulted in the creation of AI capable of far greater things than in the past, "like spotting complex patterns, contributing with advanced coding, and perhaps most notably, delivering increasingly human-like interaction."

Increased capability isn't the only driving force behind Embracer's increasing adoption of AI: Everyone else is doing it too, and hey, Embracer doesn't want to miss the boat.

"Certainly, one of the major risks for a company is not to use AI, as this would mean a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis other industry players," Embracer privacy and AI governance head Tomas Hedman said. "Most companies will move forward on AI integration in different ways. For us, it is the way that we do this that is the most critical element."

"We do not want to replace people with AI, we want to empower them," Hedman said, explaining Embracer's 'way'. "This is the core of our human-centric approach to leveraging the potential with AI.

"It's not just that AI enables our developers to do even more, and to become more efficient on certain tasks, it will also open up coding to a broader group of developers. Entry into the industry might be easier for individuals with disabilities who, for instance, cannot use a keyboard as easily as others."

Improved accessibility is absolutely a desirable outcome, but the real focus seems to be elsewhere: Hedman said that as AI models improve, "we can leverage their capacity also in the creative process," in tasks like "identifying inconsistencies in scripts and storytelling," and assisting creative teams with "scriptwriting, image creation, idea generation, quality control, and more"—jobs, I can't help noting, that are already being done by people: writers, editors, artists, testers, and so forth.

Hedman believes that the impact of AI won't only be felt behind the scenes, but will be visible to gamers too. "As models become more human-like, the interaction between players and AI-supported functions will be much more dynamic. If in a game scenario you bargain, AI can remember this the next time. That makes the whole gaming experience much more interesting and lifelike."

Okay, but counterpoint:

Whether we like it or not, generative AI use is already growing rapidly: A recent GDC survey found that 31% of game developers are already using it, and that genie's not going back into the bottle. But I think there are limits to what can be done with it that fall far short of some of the starry-eyed promises being made: Neither Nvidia's AI demo nor Ubisoft's uncanny NEO NPCs have come close to convincing me that AI-powered NPCs will provide better, more engaging interactions than well-written characters.

A wholly separate question is whether a "human-centric approach" to AI will actually stand up to pressure when the numbers on the quarterly financials aren't going up as quickly as people would like. Embracer also said in its report that it put 1,583 people out of work over the past year as a consequence of a failed $2 billion investment deal in 2023. Those layoffs also saw multiple studio closures including Campfire Cabal, Volition, Free Radical Design, and most recently, Pieces Interactive.

Pieces Interactive, the developer of the Alone in the Dark reboot that launched earlier this year, has been shut down by parent company Embracer Group.

Word of the closure came via Pieces Interactive's Twitter feed, which posted an image containing the studio's logo and the message "Pieces Interactive: 2007-2024. Thanks for playing with us."

The studio's website now carries the same image, as well as a longer message detailing the studio's history since its founding in 2007. "In 2017, Pieces Interactive were acquired by Embracer Group after working with the expansion for Titan Quest, Titan Quest: Ragnarök and third expansion for Titan Quest, Titan Quest: Atlantis," the message says. "Our last release was the reimagining of Alone in the Dark."

Pieces Interactive's Alone in the Dark reboot was good stuff. We called it "an intelligent reimagining of the 1992 classic" in our 76% review that, despite bugs and some occasional over-reliance on combat, delivered "the best Alone in the Dark game since 1992."

Despite that, the game apparently didn't sell very well. In Embracer's 2023-24 full year financial report, the company said sales of Alone in the Dark were "softer than expected," and "performed below management expectations."

Embracer's THQ Nordic division confirmed with PC Gamer that Pieces Interactive has been closed, but declined to comment further. 

The closure comes just three days after Galvanic Games announced its own shutdown due to inadequate sales of its most recent release, Wizard with a Gun; June has also seen layoffs and studio closures at Behaviour Interactive, Sumo Group, and Avalanche.

In 2022 Embracer acquired the rights to most media relating to The Lord of the Rings, a complex deal that nevertheless gives it control over pretty much everything to do with the series outside of the original books (which among other things remain controlled by the Tolkien estate). This operation is managed by a subsidiary set up for the purpose, Middle-earth Enterprises, and so far their main output has been a bit of a hangover from before it acquired the rights: a Gollum game so dodgy that it more-or-less killed Daedelic as a developer.

Lee Guinchard is the CEO of Embracer Freemode (the parent company of Middle-earth Enterprises) and is basically now in charge of the franchise. Videogames, movies, board games, and merch based on the series will all involve this company from hereon out, and Guinchard is the man with the final say.

And it goes without saying that he's got the Tolkien-praising down to an art. In a new interview with VentureBeat Guinchard says a lot of words, but you'll struggle to find much purchase therein. "The fans who experience this see it as the greatest world ever made outside of our own," is one such meaningless paean. "We have the characters and stories people love and yearn for everywhere in the world," runs another.

In days gone Tolkien fans were often critical of the author's son, Christopher, for both his fiercely protective attitude towards the books, as well as his own many contributions to the LotR 'canon'. Those projects that did happen were mostly down to Saul Zaentz, who managed to negotiate a licence and get things like Jackson's films made. Zaentz died in 2014, and Christopher Tolkien in 2020, which opened up the door to this more comprehensive deal, as well as a nice payout for the Tolkien grandchildren.

Fans may come to look back on that as the golden era, because Embracer and Guinchard are out for big money. The main beats of the CEO's background are lengthy stints at Take-Two and Activision Blizzard, and so a lot of what he says in the VentureBeat interview is just trained verbiage: "support creators first" and "respect the works" and we're gonna do "something amazing and big over time." The CEO says more LotR games are coming which he can't talk about, and they're a crucial part of where the franchise is going more generally, to which one can only say "duh".

There is enough here, though, to get LotR fans concerned. "Not everything is going to hit it out of the park," Guinchard said. "We know that. But we’re really creating an ecosystem and an agile company that invites creators to create things in this world. That’s the plan." Hm. This sounds slightly like a quantity over quality approach, and let's face it: with a few honorable exceptions, we've had a lot of mediocre LotR stuff since the Jackson movies.

A window into nothing

Now let's get real gnarly. VentureBeat asks a question about Tolkien's work in relation to Roblox and other user-generated content. "[The opportunity is] a lot bigger than people might realize," says Guinchard. "Embracing your communities and building with them. The world is naturally going there, building things with them."

Brilliantly, this comes a week after the announcement of Peter Jackson's new Gollum movie saw Warner Bros. issue a copyright strike and nuke an old fan movie on YouTube. The studio soon enough reversed course after a backlash, and very convincingly called it a mistake.

Think it can't get worse? Guinchard likes AI. In fact, he has some sort of internal software called "Ask Gandalf". "There’s a limitation to what can and should be done" with AI, says an oblivious Guinchard.

"If you treat everything just like a bunch of rights all the time, and a bunch of transactions, you get average,” said Guinchard. "This part of the group is going to be focused on building long-term intellectual property, with its creators, and with other creators, as well. We use the words Middle-earth & Friends because it is really about the IP. It’s all about the IP.

"That’s the one thing that we’ve got a lot of opportunities for building out in a very Middle-earth way. What does the next chapter mean? This is like the torchlight in the middle of the journey."

It's not though, is it. This is the era where The Lord of the Rings, which had been carefully managed ever since the author's death in 1973, starts to repeat and grind itself down with over-saturation. During the interview constant references are made to Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as if they were still in their age of triumph rather than becoming cautionary tales.

Guinchard says, "I’d like to think that what we build here is that central hub” from which other LotR media branches out, before yet another magnificently empty phrase: "What we have to strive to be here in this next evolution of being is the connective tissue with everything doing the right things by people who matter. All of this becomes useful to the universe."

First of all: what. Second, that choice of the verb "useful" strikes me as a very odd one. But the message does come through: get ready for a deluge. Embracer's LotR games so far have fallen flat (as well as Gollum there was The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria which was just utterly middling), albeit they were in-development before Embracer got involved, and the next in line is Tales of the Shire, a naked attempt to hop on the cozy games bandwagon ("there are a lot of these cozy games now, but this one really is quite cozy," says Guinchard). Longer term, Amazon Games is working on an MMO, and you just know that Embracer's going to end up doing rubbish like an Aragorn prequel. Oh well.

Outside of games, The Rings of Power gets a new season in September, there's an animated movie due later this year, and then the biggie is probably the Peter Jackson produced Gollum movie due in 2026. Which I'm not sure anyone asked for, or will be excited by, but at least in that case the talent involved is unquestioned.

When delving into the rights for The Lord of the Rings, there's a lot of talk about how they're split between the time periods of the world: First Age, Second Age, and so on. As Tolkien spins in his grave we lucky humans get a new age. The one where we get to watch The Lord of the Rings milked dry with sub-par products and diminishing returns before, eventually, that won't be enough: and the very marrow is nibbled out of the bones in some doomed frenzy.

I dearly wish I could slam down a staff and bellow "you shall not pass", but the Balrog are in charge now. Those who love The Lord of the Rings will have to bear it, glimmering in the gloom, and can only console themselves with good counsel: "Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not."

If you've not been following the journey of Embracer, let me speedrun an explanation real quick: Over the course of seven years, Embracer snapped up a bunch of companies, hit an iceberg of a sunken $2 billion dollar deal, subsequently laid off 1,400 people in six months, and scrapped a bunch of projects while selling off studios to bail water.

Recently, the hull has split three ways. Embracer will break off into Asmodee Corp, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-Earth Enterprises & Friends. This is something Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors called "the start of a new chapter". Going forward, he'll be a shareholder in all three companies.

Looking back on the rest of the book, though, Wingefors does seem to admit that he might have messed up. Just a bit. 

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Wingefors concedes that "as a leader and an owner, sometimes you need to take the blame and you need to be humble about if you've made mistakes and if you could have done something differently."

While he's "sure I deserve a lot of criticism" and that he "could take a lot of that blame myself", Wingefors sees the aforementioned split as a way to continue the core vision of the company (soon-to-be-formerly) known as Embracer.

"I still feel I have the trust from many or all of my key entrepreneurs and CEOs that have joined the group," Wingefors states. "It's been difficult, but I think they all believed in the mission of Embracer." 

As for the oft-criticised spending spree: "When we were at the peak of 2020, 2021, we made all those decisions to acquire or organically set up or invest … I firmly believed in that. The outcome, because it takes a number of years to make games, is different and it's painful and we need to adapt to it."

Despite forming a large part of the over 16,000 layoffs which rocked the games industry in 2023 and early 2024, Wingefors remains certain that Embracer has "been trying to safeguard as many jobs as possible," adding "We've been trying to find new homes for teams and people." He then says that it's "easy to look back in hindsight on things." As for what those things are, your guess is as good as mine.

Ultimately Embracer's legacy is, as a respondent to a GDC survey in 2024 puts it, "[buying] up large swaths of an industry" and "creating redundancies and placing innovative, more 'exploratory' studios in a position where they’ll never be seen as profitable enough for shareholders." 

An abundance of oops, my bad won't do much to wash that reputation from the public record. Here's hoping that the split is a healthy one, and that we don't see the three houses of the once-great fiefdom Embracer shovelled into the maw of some other conglomerate. Oh, and that the KOTOR remake is still okay. 

Embracer Group has announced it is transforming into three separate, publicly listed companies, respectively named Asmodee Corp, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-Earth Enterprises & Friends.

In a press release, Embracer Group explains that each of the three companies will be listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm stock exchange, with Asmodee Group and Coffee Stain & Friends being newly listed entities, while Middle Earth & Friends will "remain within the current listed company Embracer Group, which will subsequently be renamed".

According to Embracer, the three companies have been organised to "better focus on their respective core strategies", with each built around a different part of the holding company's business. Asmodee Group will remain oriented around distribution and publication of tabletop games, while Coffee Stain and Friends will have a "dual focus" on indie and mid-budget PC and console games.

Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends, Embracer says, will be a "creative powerhouse" of AAA developers, with stewardship of licenses like Tomb Raider, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and of course The Lord of the Rings. It will oversee studios like Crystal Dynamic, Eidos Montreal, Dambuster Studios, Tripwire Interactive, Flying Wild Hog, and Warhorse Studios.

In an open letter, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors said that Embracer's journey "has not always been a straight road" but that the ongoing transformation "is the start of a new chapter, a chapter that I intend to remain part of as an active, committed, and supportive shareholder of all three new entities." The transition from one company to three, he claims, "reinforces Embracer's vision of backing entrepreneurs and creators with a long-term mindset."

It's surprising, to say the least, to hear Wingefors discuss Embracer's 'long-term' mindset considering the company's business strategy up to now. In the space of just seven years, Embracer Group acquired over 100 game companies, all to facilitate a mysterious $2 billion dollar deal that it said "would have set a new benchmark for the gaming industry." When that deal collapsed in what Wingefors referred to as a "rough night", Embracer embarked upon a brutal "restructuring program". It divested from multiple companies including Saber Interactive and Gearbox Software, laid off 1,400 people in six months, and cancelled multiple game development projects, including a new TimeSplitters and a new Deus Ex.

Consequently, Embracer has become emblematic of the dismissive, transactional way in which the games industry often treats the individual creatives without whom the whole enterprise wouldn't exist. This may be partly why the holding group appears to be scratching out any trace of the name 'Embracer' from its business, and has even added the peculiar phrase "& Friends" to two of these new entities. Embracer Group? What Embracer Group? We're Lovely Business & Pals Inc!

Moreover, how much Embracer's business strategy has changed behind these friendlier company faces is up for debate. As part of this new chapter, Embracer has entered into a "new financing agreement" through Asmodee Group to the amount of EUR 900m. Embracer states the proceeds from these will be used to "repay existing debt and reduce leverage in the remaining Embracer Group". In a separate press release, Embracer goes on to explain this agreement is an 18 month loan, one that is "only secured by Asmodee assets" and "ringfenced with no recourse" to the remaining parts of Embracer, that is being used to refinance its existing SEK 8 billion ($733 million) loan. In short, if the loan isn't repaid, the debt collectors will soon enough be knocking on Asmodee's door.

Wingefors, for his part, seems to have no intention of vacating his position as CEO despite being responsible for the whole fiasco. In his open letter, he writes "At the IPO in 2016 I made a promise to stakeholders that I would be around for at least 25 years—and I still have 17 years left to fulfill that." I can't help but wonder how that sounds to the people who were on the sharp end of Embracer's restructuring program.

There is probably no company more emblematic of the workplace chaos that's gripped the videogame industry than Embracer. After rapidly expanding into a gaming behemoth, the studio went off a cliff in 2023 after the collapse of a planned $2 billion investment deal with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group. But Matthew Karch, CEO of the newly spun-off Saber Interactive, believes Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors "gets a bad rap" for all the layoffs and studio closures that followed, saying in an interview with GamesIndustry that in reality, "nobody has been guided by more of a sense of fairness and reasonableness."

Embracer acquired Saber Interactive in 2020, making Karch—formerly the CEO of Saber—a member of its board. In 2023, Karch took over as Embracer's chief operating officer, and then in 2024 founded a company called Beacon Interactive that acquired most of Saber Interactive from Embracer in March.

"The process that we've had to go through to terminate studios has absolutely been... it's killed us," Karch said. "I say 'us' even though I'm no longer part of the company because I feel like… I mean, I still have shares, I still have close relationships and good friends, and obviously the best wishes that they succeed over there. But I would say Embracer tried harder than anybody to save as many jobs as it could."

Karch said the failure of the Savvy Games Group deal meant Embracer was forced to make "significant changes," but also pointed a finger at other commonly-cited factors for layoffs and closures, including rising interest rates that made it more difficult to raise money and "a lack of patience for companies that had investments that were long term into video games." The growth of Embracer's debt and decline in its share price, which he blamed in part on people "trying to take advantage of other people's misery" by short-selling the stock, also made it difficult to raise capital.

Interestingly, Karch said Embracer didn't really need the Savvy Games Group deal, but "there's pressures from the market to continually grow and to grow fast, and those market pressures can sometimes impact the way you perceive things and judge them."

"It is true that when you gather so many assets so quickly, you have to take a deep breath and take stock of what you have," he said. "And I also think that when the markets are supporting this manic kind of growth and you're in a situation where you could take advantage of that, it's hard not to leverage that. It's hard not to leverage a strong share price to go out and buy assets."

I'm not a big-time CEO so I can't speak with authority on the matter but it seems to me that accurately perceiving and judging your company's disposition, and resisting the urge to go ham with the money trucks when you're riding high, is literally a CEO's job. And I don't see how you can judge Wingefors' performance as anything more than, well, he blew it: He overplayed his hand, overextended the company, and now other players, including Karch, are picking through the rubble.

Of course, Wingefors doesn't stand alone in this particular tire fire. Executives throughout the gaming industry acted like the surge driven by the stay-at-home early years of the Covid-19 pandemic was a permanent state of affairs, and that growth—constant, relentless, blood-sucking growth—would continue to drive forward from that new baseline. 

It didn't happen, because of course it didn't, and the wreckage left in the wake of those faulty assumptions has thrown thousands of lives into turmoil. There's plenty of blame to go around—Wingefors just takes extra heat because of the scale of Embracer's downfall and some occasional ill-chosen words about "maximizing shareholder value," although he seems to have learned to change his tone more recently.

Following the recent sale of Gearbox to Take-Two Interactive, Wingefors announced that Embracer is "ending [its] restructuring program," and Karch said he's "bullish" on its future. "I think they're a great company and I think they're really, really great people. I just feel badly that the last year has been so stressful—it's been stressful for me too."

The Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake still stubbornly refuses to become one with the Force. The remake that wouldn't say die is apparently still going, per a recent chat between Saber boss Matthew Karch and IGN, in which the CEO came out and said—maybe a touch wearily—that the troubled project was still alive.

"It's clear and it's obvious that we're working on this, it's been in the press numerous times," said Karch, before adding "What I will say is that the game is alive and well, and we're dedicated to making sure we exceed consumer expectations." To be honest, at this point I think exceeding consumer expectations would just mean putting the game out at all.

Karch isn't wrong about the press thing (I would know). The KOTOR remake fell under a shroud of silence ever since its original devs at Aspyr showed a reportedly disastrous demo to Lucasfilm and Sony execs in July 2022, but news has continued to pour out about it anyway. For instance, we learnt on the down-low that it had probably switched devs from Aspyr to Saber, that it's probably been delayed again, and that Saber likely kept the project when Embracer sold the studio off in the wake of its collapsed $2 billion mystery deal.

And yet, somehow, the remake continues to survive under Saber's auspices. Which seems like a miracle akin to dodging a thunderstorm's-worth of raindrops to me. In fact, Karch's comments feel like the most surefire sign of life the project has had since it first debuted at a 2021 Sony showcase. 

Although it's been generally accepted for years that the project is under Saber's control, none of the key players involved ever really came out and said it directly. The closest we got was a 2022 comment from Embracer that Saber was assisting Aspyr with the game, with the remaining gaps filled in by reports based on anonymous Saber sources. But with Saber now outside Embracer's, uh, embrace, and Karch somewhat exasperatedly saying "It's clear and obvious that we're working on this," the precise status of the KOTOR remake is clearer than it's ever been.

Which still isn't as clear as I'd like it to be. I love the original KOTOR—it's one of the games that formed my tastes as a kid—and I'm very curious to see what a modern studio would do with a remake. Saber's project is clearly still alive in some capacity, but it's had to endure a lot in the past few years. 

Even though KOTOR seems to be on a surer footing, I still wouldn't bet money it will actually come out, and even if it does, I suspect the scars of its development will be more than a little visible.

Good news, everyone! Embracer Group is bringing an end to its restructuring process. You know, the one that followed in the wake of its collapsed $2 billion deal, resulting in the closure of Volition and Free Radical, the layoff of over 1,300 developers, the cancellation of a new Deus Ex, and a fire-sale of studios that include Saber Interactive and, most recently, Borderlands developer Gearbox.

As reported by RPS, Gearbox's sale represents the final aftershock of the city-flattening earthquake that was Embracer's restructure, as explained by CEO Lars Wingefors in an investment call about the Gearbox divestment.

"We are ending the restructuring programme now, end of March, and the Gearbox restructuring process has been part of that programme," Wingefors said. "Now we are getting approached, I would say not quite daily, but on a weekly basis, by companies that would like to acquire certain assets within the group. And I’ve been very clear that they’re not for sale, because they’re a very important part for the group and for the shareholders of the group going forward."

Wingefors says Embracer's current plan "to increase profitability and cashflow generation" is "simply making better products and games," which is quite the suggestion. Personally, I thought having game developers increase profitability by making games was already the sensible, obvious way to earn money in the games industry. But what do I know? In the investment call Wingefors was, incredibly, already fielding questions about whether Embracer had plans to start... embracing, again.

"I think it’s way too early to start talking about restarting the M&A [Mergers and Acquisitions] engines again," Wingefors said. "Now we are in the late phases of the consideration into the future of the group, and that’s our highest focus and priority—how we set up ourselves and structure ourselves, and utilise our assets we have within the group, and have them work together."

Those "assets"—aka the thousands of developers who still work at Embracer—now have to contend with making games in the aftermath of seeing scores of their colleagues laid off. If you want to understand even a fraction of the human cost of widespread layoffs like those enacted by Embracer, PC Gamer recently dug deep into the impact of layoffs across the industry over the last 12 months. "Before there were plenty of places to land and studios would respond to swoop up talent," said veteran developer Michelle Hebert on the subject. "This time, they're not there because everyone is drowning it feels."

Swedish games behemoth Embracer Group bought Gearbox for $1.3 billion back in 2021. Just over three years later, Embracer Group is divesting Gearbox Entertainment to 2K Games and Rockstar parent company Take-Two Entertainment for $460 million. The acquisition is expected to finalize by the end of June.

Embracer will retain one piece of the Gearbox pie however, in the form of Gearbox Publishing San Francisco, which holds publishing rights to the Remnant series and Hyper Light Breaker, in addition to "other notable unannounced game releases". The remaining arm of the business will be renamed.

Embracer Group has been ruthlessly downsizing to stay afloat, after years of seemingly monthly studio and publisher acquisitions. It sold off Saber Interactive last month to the tune of $247 million, and laid off around 1,400 people in 2023. Last year it shut Saints Row studio Volition and Square Enix Montreal, to name just a small handful of its big contractions. Rumors that Gearbox was on the out started as far back as September last year.

Embracer's recent doom and gloom is in stark contrast to 2021-22: those were the days when the company was making huge acquisitions ranging Lord of the Rings through to some of Square Enix's former tentpole western studios, and receiving big investments from Saudi Arabia. But following the collapse of a $2 billion deal in 2023, which prompted an immediate and "comprehensive" restructuring of the business, most of the studios brought under the Embracer Group umbrella have suffered to one extent or another. Needless to say, a hell of a lot must have rested on that deal.

"Today’s announcement marks the result of the final structured divestment process and is an important step in transforming Embracer into the future with notably lower net debt and improved free cash flow," Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors said in a prepared statement. "Through the transaction, we lower business risk and improve profitability as we transition to becoming a leaner and more focused company."

Gearbox founder and Randy Pitchford had his say as well: "As a significant long-term Embracer Group shareholder, I believe in the strategy for the Embracer Group going forward and am completely convinced that this transaction is the best possible scenario and an obvious net positive arrangement for Embracer Group, for Take-Two and, of course, for Gearbox Entertainment. My primary interest is always Gearbox, especially our talent and our customers. I want to personally assure fans of our games that this arrangement will ensure that the experiences we have in development at Gearbox will be the best they can possibly be.”

Two-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick also indicated in his own prepared statement that these corporate machinations are for the greater good. Gearbox will fall under the 2K umbrella as a studio, presumably with a focus on Borderlands games, which 2K has published since the series started in 2009. For its $460 million, Take-Two also gets other Gearbox IP including Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms, and Duke Nukem.

Knights of the Old Republic is one of Bioware's most beloved RPGs—a game that capitalised on the promise of the Star Wars extended universe in so many inventive ways that it spawned an entire fandom dedicated to that slice of a galaxy far, far away. So when a remake was announced in—god—2021, we were all pretty excited. Then it was consigned to the inferno of development hell. 

In July of 2022 it surfaced that the remake was possibly delayed. No, wait, it was actually shifted to another studio. Then radio silence followed, so much in fact that the CEO of Embracer Group—the giant monolith that had also flubbed a $2 billion deal and would later lay off over a thousand people, kill a Deus Ex sequel, and sell off studios to keep the lights on—outright refused to talk about it. But don't worry, it's totally not dead—Saber Interactive is still working on it, wait, no, Embracer's selling Saber Interactive off now. I want to get off Lars Wingefors' wild ride.

Now you're all caught up to speed and suitably spiritually damaged, here's the latest news: It's not getting canned in the sale, according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier (thanks, VGC) who confirmed on Twitter: "Yes, that's going with Saber". As pointed out by a commenter, however, Schreier thinks it's likely one of the "retained joint projects … a previously announced AAA game based on a major licence" named in the sale: "It’s the only game that fits," Schrier writes. "Not sure what kind of deal they struck there."

In a conference call yesterday, Embracer's CEO Lars Wingefors was asked about said "AAA game based on a major licence", and whether it was "for the coming 12 months", he replied: "No, I think that kind of game needs some deep love and respect, so. Without giving full colour, I think it's some time left until that game is released." 

So there you have it. We're still at least a year out from what should have been a relatively straightforward shot. I wouldn't personally hold out hope for a 2025 release either, just considering how things have panned out so far, but hey. Miracles do happen, maybe we just need to trust in the force.

Embracer Group has announced the sale of Saber Interactive to a company called Beacon Interactive, founded by Saber co-founder Matthew Karch, in a deal worth $247 million, although options in the deal mean that price could go much higher. The deal will also see Embracer halt all operations in Russia, which the company said in a presentation "reduces geopolitical risk."

"I am pleased that we have found a win-win solution for Embracer and the parts of Saber that now will leave us," Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors said in the announcement. "This transaction puts both companies in a stronger position to thrive going forward. Embracer is now able to discontinue all operations in Russia, according to a previous board decision, while safeguarding many developer jobs under new independent ownership.

"At the same time, we keep key companies, valuable IPs and future publishing rights. Cash flow is immediately improved, and we remain committed to reducing net debt."

As Wingefors said, the deal will see most of the studios operating as part of Embracer's Saber Interactive division, but not all of them, go to Beacon. Studios leaving Embracer as part of the sale include:

• All Saber-branded studios
• DIGIC
• Fractured Bye
• Mad Head Games
• New World Interactive
• Nimble Giant
• Saber Interactive Inc
• Sandbox Strategies
• Slipgate
• 3D Realms

Embracer will retain some big names that were previously operating under the Saber division:

• 34 Big Things
• 4A Games
• Aspyr
• Beamdog
• Demiurge
• Shiver
• Snapshot
• Tripwire Interactive
• Tuxedo Labs
• Zen Studios

However, the deal also includes an option to enable Beacon to acquire 4A Games and Zen Studios "within a certain time period," and according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Karch has already said that Saber is picking them up too. If so, that will reportedly bump the purchase price up to roughly $500 million, although the terms of the option were not revealed.

Embracer said 38 projects currently in development are included with the sale, while 14—including two "joint projects" with Beacon—will be retained. Those include "the next AAA game from 4A Games," which is presumably the next Metro, Killing Floor 3, the ongoing development of Teardown, and "the full upcoming pipeline and back catalog from Zen Studios, Aspyr, and Tripwire."

That last bit might feel like a bit of a dodged bullet for Knights of the Old Republic fans. Aspyr was working on the Schrodinger's Cat-alike KOTOR remake, but was pulled off the project in mid-2022. It's reportedly not dead, although what's really going on is anyone's guess, but responsibility for the remake was reportedly included with the Saber sale, which may—dare we dream—mean that it actually might get made at some point.

(Aspyr's recent performance with Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection may also prompt some quiet sense of relief that someone else is doing the KOTOR remake.)

Saber Interactive chief creative officer Tim Willits confirmed that Saber's highest-profile project at the moment, Space Marine 2, went with it in the deal.

Karch said the deal "leaves both parties in much better positions to grow our respective businesses," and more importantly, that it "safeguards the livelihoods of hundreds of professionals." Sell-offs and acquisitions don't necessarily ensure job security (especially in this business) but for now it's a far better outcome than the fates suffered by some Embracer studios, including Free Radical Design and Volition, which were closed outright following the collapse of a $2 billion investment deal that sent Embracer into a spiral.

Wingefors described the Saber sale as "the first transaction" of its previously announced recovery plan, suggesting that more is on the way—possibly including the finalization of a Gearbox sale, which is rumored to be in the "late stages" of completion.

He also seemed to be choosing his words a little more carefully, saying the deal "marks a small but important step in our journey to transform Embracer into the future for the benefit of all employees, gamers, and shareholders." That stands in sharp contrast to previous statements from Embracer executives, including Wingefors, which have been focused squarely on the well-being of shareholders—and which have not gone over particularly well with anyone else. Maybe Wingefors is finally learning that there are more than just investors listening to what he says.

Rumours circulating last year that Borderlands creator Gearbox Studios is to be sold appear to have sprouted fruit. This would mark its exit from the shadow of the proverbial colossus Embracer Group, which has been having an, ah, interesting year and a bit to say the least.

The group, which gathered an unsavoury reputation for hoovering up studios after a spending spree in 2022, has been scrambling to recover for the better part of a year after a $2 billion deal fell through the floorboards, punched its way through several stories, hit the metaphorical boiler in the basement, and set the whole thing on fire.

This came with a human cost—roughly 5% of its workforce. Then Timesplitters creator Free Radical Design and Deus Ex studio Eidos Montreal, leaving a potential sequel dead in the water. Saints Row Studio Volition was also closed entirely. Other studios impacted include 3D Realms, and Slipgate Ironworks, Cryptic Studios, Zen Studios, and New World Interactive. Even studios who haven't been touched yet are sounding the alarm bells, with Piranha Bytes—developers of Gothic, Risen, and Elex—stating that it was "in a difficult situation" last month.

The "restructuring" to the tune of 1,600 employees has been all about "maximising shareholder value", which has led to less-than-subtle digs across the industry, as Embracer Group continues its mission to say the quiet part a little too loudly for anyone's comfort.

According to sources that spoke with Kotaku, however, a town hall with Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford was held last week in which Pitchford announced that "a decision had been made regarding the studio’s future, with more information to be shared next month." The report then states: "Kotaku understands that the decision was made to sell, and a deal is in the late stages of being finalised."

This would follow reported plans to sell Saber Interactive, as reported by Bloomberg yesterday. Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors' statement in that infamously-worded financial report would at least track with Kotaku's reports that sales are in their late stages, as he noted: "Embracer still has a few larger structured divestment processes ongoing … Processes are in mature stages."

Pitchford himself didn't have much to say about the matter to Kotaku, other than the fact he was "delighted that what we might be up to is interesting enough to people that you want to make a story about us for your readers". 

While it's a relief to see Gearbox's developers scrambling out from under a house of cards mid-collapse, that's not to say it hasn't been clipped on the way. Lost Boys Interactive, a Gearbox Software-owned "independent subsidiary", was hit by layoffs just over a month and a half ago.

A Bloomberg report says that Swedish holding company Embracer Group has reached a deal worth as much as $500 million to sell its Saber Interactive division to a group of private investors. The deal will make Saber Interactive a privately owned company, according to the report, with approximately 3,500 employees.

Embracer bought Saber Interactive in 2020 at the height of its acquisition spree. It was made the fifth operating group under Embracer's corporate structure and currently serves as the parent of numerous other studios including 4A Games, Aspyr, Beamdog, New World Interactive, Slipgate Ironworks, and Tripwire.

But Embracer ran into trouble in May 2023 when an investment deal worth $2 billion dollars, reportedly with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group, fell through. Since then the company has laid off hundreds of employees and closed multiple studios, in some cases—such as with Timesplitters studio Free Radical Design—after failing to find potential new owners.

While no specific studios were mentioned, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors hinted that deals were in the works in its most recent quarterly financial report. "Embracer still has a few larger structured divestment processes ongoing that could strengthen our balance sheet and further reduce capex [capital expenditure]," Wingefors said. "Processes are in mature stages."

Unfortunately, he also alluded to potential further layoffs at companies that end up being sold off: "Certain companies might initiate restructuring before any divestment is announced."

Saber is currently working a couple of high-profile but seemingly struggling games: A Knights of the Old Republic remake, which Bloomberg says is still in development despite a dearth of information on it since it was "delayed indefinitely" in 2022, and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, which in November 2023 was pushed into the second half of 2024, a delay that could potentially be up to a full year.

Embracer is also reportedly looking to sell at least one other major studio, Gearbox, which it acquired in 2021 in a deal worth up to $1.3 billion. There's been no public movement on that front, but Kotaku reported earlier today that a sale is close to being finalized.

It's not clear whether the Saber Interactive sale will include some or all of the studios it currently controls as part of Embracer, although the Bloomberg report says the deal includes an option for other studios to be a part of the sale. Embracer and Saber Interactive declined to comment.

There may be a wider context of enormous industry layoffs, but the rate and volume of layoffs at Embracer Group over the last year is on an unprecedented scale. Everything seemed on an even keel until the collapse of a mystery $2 billion deal in May last year left its CEO gobsmacked (while the company's COO chose to fall on his sword) and resulted in what at the time was said to be a 5% cut to its global workforce, around 900 people.

The axe kept falling over the course of the year, with some studios closed outright, while the dire warnings about "restructuring" from the suits continued. And just to rub it in for readers of PC Gamer in particular, Embracer even laid off almost 100 staff at Crystal Dynamics and cancelled a Deus Ex game.

I have to say, Embracer hasn't exactly presented the greatest public face through all this. The first thing CEO Lars Wingefors said when the deal collapsed was to call it "a rough night", while its Chief Strategy Officer Phil Rogers later said the layoffs were "necessary" and it had made "good progress". Business is business, of course, and these layoffs may well have been inevitable: but it's always good to remember these are actual human beings losing their livelihood overnight. Especially if you're the one laying them off.

That slightly callous tone has continued in Embracer's Q3 financial report, which reveals that over Q2 and Q3 combined it has laid off 904 and 485 people respectively. That's 1,387 staff in six months, or around 8% of its workforce. 

Despite this, Embracer says it's unlikely to hit its target of getting its net debt under SEK 8 billion ($765.2 million) by the end of FY 2024. Then it goes on to further discuss reducing capital expenditure (capex), ie reducing its assets, and comes out with this stunner:

"Embracer still has a few larger structured divestment processes ongoing that could strengthen our balance sheet and further reduce capex. Processes are in mature stages. Certain companies might initiate restructuring before any divestment is announced. Our overruling principle is to always maximize shareholder value in any given situation."

Embracer says these debt reductions will come through various divestments, so essentially selling studios or IP as well as more job cuts, referencing various negotiations that are at "mature stages". That's why the second sentence in the above paragraph, "Certain companies might initiate restructuring before any divestment", is rather worrying: in plain English, this suggests it may strip studios to the bone before flogging them.

But it's that "maximise shareholder value" line that's the killer. Obviously this is a financial report written for shareholders, so this is playing to the crowd a little, but… maybe in this exact specific context you could not?

Amazingly enough, the report then goes on to say the layoffs are being "carried out with compassion, respect and integrity towards those affected." Sure.

More happy news for shareholders was a year-on-year increase of 4% in net sales to $1.157 billion, and net income of $210 million. The Q3 report ends by saying:

"With the actions that we are now taking, we are creating a strong foundation for the future, with an improved financial profile, and a more streamlined structure, while leveraging the potential of our diversified portfolio."

As for the actual games, and the studios themselves, Wingefors says Embracer's been shutting down the studios that were pulling down its "weighted average [return on investment to] around 2.2x", with the target being a ROI of 3.2x. It's going to be "considerably more selective" about the games it publishes, and you can probably guess the next part: will focus on "established, owned IPs and studios which we are confident will generate better predictability as well as increased ROI and profitability". All aboard the sequel train!

CEO Lars Wingefors throws words like "leaner, stronger" and "streamlined" around, though you do wonder where the layoffs are going to end with the Swedish conglomerate. Current events follow on from years when it was one of the industry's most voracious and acquisitive investors, but the fact that the collapse of one deal (albeit a gigantic one) has caused the company such enormous trouble suggests it wasn't on the soundest of strategic footings to begin with.

The world got worse yesterday as the ever-spiralling Embracer Group laid off 97 people at Eidos Montreal and apparently cancelled an upcoming Deus Ex game the studio had been working on for two years. The layoffs were, in a year that has already seen thousands of job losses before the end of January, bitterly unsurprising, but the fact that a new Deus Ex had been in development only to be cast aside took many of us unawares.

Many, but not all. One person who wasn't shocked by the news of Deus Ex's aborted resurrection was Elias Toufexis, voice actor for Human Revolution and Mankind Divided's Adam Jensen. In the wake of the news, Toufexis tweeted that "I told you guys it wasn't happening," and told PC Gamer that "I gotta be honest, I gave up on it a long time ago."

In fact, Toufexis seems understandably convinced that whatever Deus Ex project Eidos Montreal was cooking up wasn't even going to be a continuation of Adam Jensen's story, which began all the way back in 2011 with Human Revolution and was left unfinished after 2016's Mankind Divided. "I wasn't under NDA and they never called me," Toufexis told PCG, elaborating on Twitter that "If they had been working on a #DeusEx for two years, and they still hadn't contacted me, there's a good chance it wasn't a Jensen story anyway."

Well if that isn't another shot through the heart, I don't know what is. The Eidos Deus Ex games weren't perfect—then again, blasphemous as it may be to say it, neither was the original—but they had their own charm, and I'll admit I was eager to see where it was taking Jensen's story after laying down some weird and intriguing loose plot threads in Mankind Divided.

But it looks like we wouldn't have gotten that even if Embracer's $2 billion mystery deal (reportedly with Saudi Arabia) hadn't fallen through and Eidos had been allowed to carry its now-cancelled Deus Ex to term, which suggests that the Jensen trilogy as a whole is simply dead and buried. Those games—and Deus Ex as a series—deserve better. 

Eidos Montreal, developer of the Adam Jensen-centric Deus Ex reboots as well as 2021's Guardians of the Galaxy, announced today that it has laid off 97 employees "from development teams, administration, and support services." According to a Bloomberg report, the layoffs coincide with the cancellation of an unannounced Deus Ex game the studio was working on. 

Eidos didn't confirm the existence or cancellation of an unannounced Deus Ex project in its announcement, but Bloomberg describes the game as having been in development for two years, likely starting just before or immediately after the studio's acquisition by the Embracer Group in 2022.

According to the anonymous sources who spoke to Bloomberg, the game was ready to transition out of pre-production into full development this year. This isn't the end for Eidos Montreal as a whole, though: the studio is reportedly still working on a similarly-unannounced game that is not attached to any pre-existing IP.

The Embracer Group picked up Eidos Montreal as part of its ill-fated spending spree in 2021 and '22, also acquiring Square Enix Montreal (which was immediately shuttered) and Crystal Dynamics from the Japanese giant, Square Enix. With Square Enix seeming to have never known what to do with its Western studios, I remember hoping that, despite the alarming speed of Embracer's industry consolidation, it might prove a better steward of these developers.

As the Swedish conglomerate began to decline last year, Eidos Montreal seemed to be unaffected by its closures and layoffs. Rumors emerged of a new entry in this most PC of videogame franchises, and the future of Deus Ex looked slightly brighter than it had since Mankind Divided failed to meet its sales targets in 2016 and a planned Adam Jensen trilogy was put on ice.

Elias Toufexis, the voice actor of reboot series protagonist Adam Jensen, confirmed last summer that he hadn't been approached about a new Deus Ex game. Toufexis weighed in on news of the cancellation and layoffs, simply tweeting "I told you guys it wasn't happening." 

"For a while I was telling people I wasn't under any NDA and they never called me," Toufexis told PC Gamer today. "Here's proof they never will. I gotta be honest, I gave up on it a long time ago."

The ongoing industry malaise and Embracer's implosion have hit thousands of developers with layoffs, and the fever doesn't seem set to break anytime soon. While the human cost is always the worst part of news like this, it's also frustrating to see a beloved series like Deus Ex squandered in this way⁠—The Embracer Group seems to be running out of exciting projects for gamers to care about.

After a week of rumors, Embracer-owned studio Piranha Bytes, the developer of the Gothic, Risen, and Elex games, has acknowledged that it is in "a difficult situation" but says it's still trying to find a way forward for its next project. Should it be unable to do so, the studio will be closed.

Word of potential trouble at Piranha Bytes surfaced last week on the Elex 2 subreddit: An admin noticed the studio's next game, codenamed WIKI6 and expected to be Elex 3, had been removed from the German government's funding page. 

The Piranha Bytes homepage had also been changed to just a studio logo and address, and the previously-active Piranha Bytes YouTube channel hasn't had a video updated since November 27, 2023. German gaming site Gamestar (Google translated) then reported on multiple sources saying the studio was facing closure.

Piranha Bytes has now acknowledged that the situation is not good. "Yes, it's true," the studio said in a message posted today. "We, Piranha Bytes, are in a difficult situation. There are a lot of news about us circulating right now and this is our answer: Don't write us off yet!"

There's still no indication as to what the studio's next project is intended to be, but it sounds like it won't be backed by Embracer: "We are focusing on this goal with all our strength and [will] do whatever it takes to find a partner for this project," the message says.

Piranha Bytes was founded in 1997 and developed a reputation as a maker of large, complex, janky RPGs through the Gothic, Risen, and Elex games. It was acquired by THQ Nordic, a division of the Embracer Group, in 2019 at the height of the shopping spree that turned Embracer into a genuine games industry giant.

But Embracer ran into trouble in 2023 after a $2 billion investment deal fell apart, and the fallout of that collapse has been devastating: Hundreds of employees laid off, and multiple studios have been closed over the subsequent months. The wording of Piranha Bytes' message bears echoes of the situation at Timesplitters studio Free Radical Design, which was reported to be facing "potential closure" in November 2023. 

Ultimately, that's what happened: Embracer was unable to find a buyer for Free Radical and officially shuttered it in December. Now Piranha Bytes is facing the same situation: A representative said that if the studio is unable to find a new partner for its next game or to move forward as an indie studio, it will be shut down.

Lost Boys Interactive has become the latest Embracer-owned studio to undergo layoffs, as former producer Jared Pace said on LinkedIn (via Game Developer) that "a sizable portion" of its workforce has been let go.

The Lost Boys Interactive website describes the studio as "a wholly owned yet independent subsidiary of Gearbox Software," and "a proud member of the Embracer Group." Its past credits include Square Enix's The Quiet Man, and less unfortunately, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and Diablo 4. It became a Gearbox studio less than two years ago, in June 2022.

"It seems a sizable portion of Lost Boys Interactive was laid off today, including myself," Pace wrote. "Still trying to understand the scope of it all, but sadly—this is a song and dance we're all familiar with."

Pace's report was corroborated by numerous other Lost Boys employees including art director Nick Barone, who described the layoffs as "the hardest day of my career."

"Even though I was spared in the company-wide layoff at Lost Boys Interactive, so many talented artists and flat-out fantastic people were let go," Barone wrote. "I simply do not have the words to convey how much all of the relationships that I formed have meant to me personally and if anyone needs a reference do not hesitate to reach out."

"Unfortunately, I am part of the people impacted by the layoffs at Lost Boys Interactive under the Gearbox/Embracer Group," concept artist Patricia Lan-Anh D. wrote. "LBI is an amazing studio and has truly been a highlight of my career. I've enjoyed my time there with all the wonderful, quirky and talented folks who I will miss very much! I hope we cross paths again, best wishes to everyone and those affected!"

In a statement provided to PC Gamer, Lost Boys Interactive confirmed that employees have been let go. 

"Lost Boys Interactive made the difficult decision to restructure our studio to ensure we can succeed in spite of headwinds facing the industry right now," a studio representative said. "Unfortunately, this does mean we will separate from some of our team members and we’re working closely with those affected. We know this is a hard time for this talented and experienced group of people and will provide support and assistance through this transition to those leaving."

2023 was a brutal year for layoffs in the videogame and tech business and 2024 has so far been no better. Even though we're only two weeks into the year, Bossa Studios, Unity, Twitch, and Discord have all made significant cuts to staffing already. Most of them have cited overly aggressive expansion during the opening years of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent need to "reset," as Unity put it, but the Embracer Group is a unique case: After rapidly expanding into a genuine gaming behemoth, the Swedish holding company fell into trouble in May 2023 after a $2 billion investment deal, reportedly with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games, fell apart at the last minute. Since then, Embracer has laid off hundreds of employees across its studios, and closed Versus Evil, Free Radical Design, Campfire Cabal, and Volition outright.