Daedalic Entertainment will no longer develop games, following the disastrous launch of its latest title, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. In addition, the studio has announced the cancellation of a second Lord of the Rings game, which had yet to be formally revealed.
Going forward, the company will focus solely on its publishing division, which is currently working on eight major releases for the upcoming financial year. Staff in Daedalic’s Hamburg, Germany-based game development studio will be supported to find new work, although GamesWirtschaft reports around 25 developers have already been laid off.
‘Even though The Lord of the Rings: Gollum did not live up to the expectations we had for the game, we are very grateful for the opportunity and the learning experience it brought us,’ Daedalic said in its announcement, per Polygon.
‘We value each and every member of our team very much and it is important to us that the transition goes as well as possible. We will therefore support our former employees in finding new opportunities within our network. A difficult break, but also a new beginning in the already long history of Daedalic Entertainment.’
Read: The Lord of the Rings: Gollum review roundup
A new patch for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is still being worked on, and this will likely be one of the final projects developed by Daedalic. While it may not save the game from its plethora of reported bugs and game-breaking issues, it may restore stability and somewhat improve overall gameplay.
The studio does have another game in the works – a follow-up to its beloved Deponia series, titled Surviving Deponia – but this is reportedly in development at a third party studio, AtomicTorch, with work continuing regardless of Daedalic’s planned restructuring.
Our thoughts are with those impacted by the upcoming closure of Daedalic Entertainment’s game development division.
