RIP Heart Machine. They were a good studio but hasn't produced a hit after hyper light drifter which was 10 years ago now.

I'll be the optimist in the room. The studio is going on life support but is still alive. Solar Ash was a great game even if it didn't bring in the number like HLD and maybe they bit off more than they could chew with Breaker. If the studio can stay alive, their next move needs to be something small again. They clearly have a good vision with their overarching game world and it doesn't need to be of massive scope.

They also seemingly abandoned Breaker, dont know if that was a publisher move or not but felt kinda backhanded by that.

Yeah, that was really disappointing. I really liked Breaker, but IIRC it just wasn't selling well.

It was a publisher move sadly. It had so much potential

what a bummer

Man, that sucks.

Probably should have made HLD2 as a followup project.

Not to be a party pooper, but a studio is only as good as its staff. If they really have laid off ‘nearly everyone’ then any creative vision they had is inevitably lost along with them.

They can claim continuity with a skeleton crew and design documents to use as reference, but it won’t be the same. Once you blow up a team there’s no going back.

Keep in mind the original game was only 5 people. The heart of Hyper Light Drifter started with just a few minds. If Preston scales the company back to what it was back in 2015, it can return again.

The fact that they announced it wasn't a closure is good. Don't forget that online journalism relies on clicks and uses exaggerated language to keep those clicks coming.