Pieces Interactive: Embracer closes developer of Alone in the Dark

Another on bites the dust – Embracer still can’t seem to finish with the cuts. After layoffs in April, another studio is now closing.

The once acquisition-happy Embracer Group is increasingly becoming a studio destruction machine. As has now become known, Pieces Interactive, which was taken over by the Embracer Group in 2017, is now also having to throw in the towel and is thus in illustrious company with studios such as Volition and Free Radical Design.

Pieces Interactive has developed a whole series of games since it was founded in 2007. As part of the Embracer Group, the studio was mainly involved with Titan Quest and, most recently, the not-so-bad reboot of Alone in the Dark in March 2024. The studio had already had to deal with layoffs in April, and now the plug has apparently been pulled for good.

After extensive purchases across the entire gaming industry, Embracer has been cutting costs for some time now and has also completely restructured its own company. Among other things, Gearbox Software was sold to Take-Two for over 400 million US dollars in order to bring money back into the cash-strapped coffers.

But things are also going well outside of Embracer. After layoffs at Sumo Digital, Behaviour Interactive and Avalanche, Galvanic Games is now also closing its doors. The Seattle-based studio, which made a name for itself with Wizard With a Gun, had to accept that the game’s sales were not enough to keep the company afloat.

Studio boss Patrick Morgan said: “It’s incredibly difficult to see our team facing the uncertainty of the current market. I’ll probably never get over the irony that I spent a decade building my ideal team, only to end it after our most productive year. The dedication, creativity and hard work of everyone on our team has been nothing short of extraordinary.”