Piranha Bytes: Are the piranhas already swimming on their stomachs?

There has been a worrying silence surrounding the German development studio Piranha Bytes for some time now. The studio is officially working on a successor to the action role-playing game Elex II, but there is a particular reason for concern: Piranha Bytes belongs to the Swedish Embracer Group.

The Embracer Group has repeatedly made headlines with takeovers and license purchases in recent years. Among others, the Borderlands makers Gearbox and Crystal Dynamics ended up in the Swedes’ shopping cart, as did the publishers THQ Nordic and Plaion (the former Koch Media Group).

After the extensive shopping trip, the bill for Embracer arrived promptly. A few financial failures later, Saints Row developer Volition and Free Radical, the team behind Time Splitters, among others, shut down.

And what does all this have to do with Piranha Bytes? The Essen-based studio belongs to THQ Nordic, which itself is part of the Embracer Group, and after Elex II’s sales figures fell short of expectations, the studio would be a logical next starting point for the red pencil.

However, the trigger for the rumors is Piranha Bytes itself. Since the end of last year Homepage of the studio is inactive and only shows the logo and the imprint. Maintenance work could also be responsible for this, but the duration speaks against a routine shutdown.

Things are no different on the official social media channels. The last YouTube-Video was already on November 27th. published and Creative Director Björn Pankratz says goodbye with the words “Hopefully we’ll see each other here again next week!”. However, nothing has come of the reunion so far and the otherwise weekly program Piranha Becken TV has not had any new episodes since then.

The Twitter or X channel of the developersr continues to post diligently, but no longer responds to comments. The posts themselves only impress with their rather generic content such as screenshots from Elex II or facts about the game.

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But things get really scary when you take a look at Piranha Byte’s current project. Elex III was actually supposed to be supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) with over 3 million dollars, but the game (which was listed under the code name WIKI6) no longer appears in the official lists of supported titles. The targeted publication would have been in 2026.

It remains to be seen whether Piranha Bytes will be the next German development studio to bite the dust after Mimimi Games. Neither the company itself nor THQ Nordic or Embracer have yet commented on the fate of the developers.