From the outside looking in, Metal: Hellsinger looks like a success story. Developer The Outsiders released its diabolical rhythm FPS in 2022, and it immediately inspired a string of positive reviews. We gave it a respectable 78%, though other critics went a lot higher. On Steam, its overall user rating is Overwhelmingly Positive.
A more than solid result for the studio's first release, and probably a relief for the team, who'd previously had to watch its previous project, Darkborn, get shelved.
In October, publisher Funcom killed the studio off.
The Outsiders was a victim of Funcom's post-Dune: Awakening cull. The same Dune: Awakening that was Funcom's "biggest release" and "fastest-selling game ever", in case you'd forgotten. In this horrifically broken industry, shipping a successful game is just as likely to cost you your job as shipping a dud.
"I think it's broken in the sense that you can make something good that people love and still not exist anymore," says David Goldfarb, studio co-founder and Battlefield veteran. "But unfortunately, there aren't a lot of other options."
It's only been a couple of months since Goldfarb and his studio suffered this seemingly fatal blow, but it's also something the whole industry has been going through for years. There's no job security in videogames, and with workers labouring under a capitalist model that exclusively rewards constant, unrelenting growth, there's little room for empathy or second chances.
"So this is just a data point among many, many data points," he says. "Unfortunately, it's one very close to me, but there are so many studios that have gone through this bullshit. Some of it is Covid hiring. There’s a million reasons why it's happening—some of it's just interest rates and loans and people not having money to invest. It's just a tough time, and stuff happens, and then you're in this situation that really, really sucks."
Increasingly, the bar is set so high, and the obstacles are so monumental, that it's hard to stay afloat unless you make a hugely successful game—at least under the traditional publisher/developer model. Where a small indie team can keep at it for years with only moderate successes, things are very different when your fate is in the hands of a large company, like Funcom.
"We didn't succeed enough critically, although people loved the game on Steam," Goldfarb says. "And we also didn't sell enough. I mean, we did fine, but you need to make a substantial amount. So when those things don't happen, and the market is the way that it is, it’s very hard to stay alive."
Goldfarb's been at this for a while, though. He got his first job as a QA tester at Acclaim Entertainment, which closed its doors way back in 2004. He found out about the job in a newspaper ad. So he's seen decades of industry highs and lows, and The Outsiders' closure won't stop him from moving forward.
"We tried a bunch of cool stuff," he says. "We got one game out that I'm very proud of during Covid, and we managed to not kill each other. Collectively, that's pretty good. We did keep the studio running for 10 years, that's a long time. And we are still alive, me and the other two founders. We're working on the 2.0 version of The Outsiders, so we're not dead. We're just getting everything together so that we [can] continue."
What shape this will take is still up in the air. "We're working on something and we're talking to people," he says. "And then, if things work out, we'll be in a position to go ahead and make that, and maybe get some of our old colleagues back. That's the dream."
Goldfarb accepts that "it's a tough time right now to be seeking funds," but he's optimistic. "Weirdly, it never bothers me. I'm always like, 'It'll work out for us'. It's just a question of when and who. But it'll work out."
