European studio Smilegate Barcelona is shutting down, laying off all of its employees in the process. It’s best-known for the free-to-play MMORPG, Lost Ark.
The studio itself hasn’t announced its closure publicly, but director Stephane Blais spills the beans on LinkedIn. He likened the layoffs to a game of Battleship — it was Barcelona team’s turn to get hit. Meanwhile, Edouard Albert, a project manager for Smilegate, backs up the alleged closure.
The studio was established in 2020 as a subsidiary to Korean dev, Smilegate. For the most part, the studio’s legacy largely relies on Crossfire and Lost Ark. The developer was, before closure, working on an open world AAA game.
It isn’t clear what’s going to happen to its MMORPG or any other game that may or may not have been in development, whether another division will take up the workload or if these projects aren’t going to see the light of day.
Considering the mass layoffs that are continuing to plague the industry, Smilegate Barcelona’s closure isn’t too hard to see coming, especially with the type of game it was attempting to release.
