Three months on from releasing its Alone in the Dark reimagining, developer Pieces Interactive has been shut down by its parent company, Embracer Group. The news was quietly shared on the Pieces Interactive website, alongside a message detailing the history of the studio.
Pieces Interactive had been in operation since 2007, and worked on a range of titles for publishers including Paradox Interactive, Koei Tecmo, Arrowhead Game Studios, Koch Media (Plaion), and more. In 2017, the studio was acquired – alongside a number of other independent studios – by Embracer Group.
Embracer has initiated a range of major cuts and studio closures to reduce costs in the last year, following a period of over-spending. While the nature of Pieces Interactive’s closure has not been detailed, it appears it may be the latest studio caught up in these cost-cutting measures. Already, we’ve seen studios including Volition and Free Radical Design face a similar fate.
What was Pieces Interactive shut down?
Embracer Group has not made an official announcement about the closure of Pieces Interactive, but there are certain clues about why the studio has been shut down. In March 2024, it released its long-in-development reboot of Alone in the Dark, and this reportedly failed to meet critical and commercial sales expectations.
Read: Alone in the Dark (2024) – Review Roundup
In its recent Q4 and full year financial report, Embracer Group described the sales of the game as “softer-than-expected” and claimed it “ultimately performed below management expectations.” It may be that these unmet expectations inspired the decision to shut the studio down – but again, nothing has been formally confirmed yet.
At this stage, it’s also unknown how many developers have been impacted by this decision. Some former Pieces Interactive staff have taken to LinkedIn and social media to report job losses, but the full scope of change is yet to be revealed.
As always in cases like this, our thoughts are with the developers now facing an uncertain future. We’re likely to hear more about the closure of Pieces Interactive in the coming days.
