Just Cause dev Avalanche closes its Liverpool studio, its 3rd in just over a year

Rico from Just Cause skydiving off an exploding tower — (Image credit: Square Enix)

After its '70s smuggling sim Contraband fell afoul of Microsoft cuts earlier this year, Just Cause dev Avalanche has concluded the process of shuttering its Liverpool studio, laying off 31 staff in the process.

For whatever it's worth, the layoffs will not have come as a surprise. Avalanche announced in the aftermath of Contraband's cancellation it had "thoroughly reviewed how to best ensure Avalanche Studio Group's long-term success." The answer was, of course, deep cuts.

"As a result, we are proposing to close our Liverpool studio," Avalanche said at the time, "and to initiate a collective consultation process, as required by UK law. This will impact all Avalanchers in Liverpool." Studios in Malmö and Stockholm were also impacted, though have not been fully shuttered.

The Liverpool closure is far from Avalanche's first. In June 2024, it closed studios in New York and Montreal—the latter of which it had only acquired eight months prior. Meanwhile, the last game to come out with a 'made by Avalanche Studios' stamp on it was 2019's Rage 2, which it co-developed with id Software. Its most famous series is probably Just Cause, but Just Cause 4 was not well-loved and even Just Cause 3 did not quite capture players like the second game in the series did.

All this to say that it's tough to see where Avalanche goes from here, and that it seems to be stuck in something of a spiral from which it's struggling to pull up. To be fair, the studio can't be blamed for Microsoft deciding to swing the axe, but I don't know what would best position it to recover from the impact.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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