Orcs Must Die! Unchained, Hero Academy 1 and 2 are closing in April

News
By published

Robot Entertainment is working on two new games that it hopes to announce later this year.

Orcs Must Die! studio Robot Entertainment laid off 30 employees in March 2018, part of a "strategic shift" that also saw it cut the number of projects it had in the works from two to one. Today it cut even deeper by announcing that Orcs Must Die! Unchained, Hero Academy, and Hero Academy 2 are being closed. 

"Making and supporting a game is a long and challenging journey. Along the way, there are plenty of highs and plenty of lows. The communities who play our games join us on these journeys. We know this decision affects our players as much as it does us," the studio said. 

"We've kept these games operating at a financial loss for many months. Unfortunately, it's no longer sustainable for us to do so. We must shift our focus to future games and make our investments there." 

Hero Academy is a relatively old game, having been released in 2012 (and "has been technically obsolete for a long time now," Robot said), but Hero Academy 2 came out less than a year ago. Orcs Must Die! Unchained rolled out in April 2017, after roughly a year in open beta. All three games will be playable until 10 am CT on April 8, and Robot Entertainment said that all Orcs Must Die! Unchained and Heroes Academy 2 players will be given "a substantial free grant of hard and soft currencies" to blow while the games are still up, but there might be a bit of a wait (up to 24 hours) before the it appears. 

The good news in all this is that Robot Entertainment confirmed that there will be no layoffs as a result of the closures. It's also expanded its development efforts back to two games, and said it hopes to announce both of them sometime this year. 

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.