Hyper Light Drifter studio ‘Heart Machine’ might shut down following game cancellation

As a studio, Heart Machine is known for releasing visually-impressive, stylish and fun indie games, with their breakout hit being the Kickstarter-backed Hyper Light Drifter. Since then, the team had been going from strength-to-strength, releasing Solar Ash to a strong reception; followed by Hyper Light Breaker in Early Access (amassing solid reviews initially); and most recently Possessor(s). Unfortunately, it appears as though the studio may soon be no more, with Heart Machine’s founder announcing that “nearly everyone at the studio” has now been laid off.

Taking to LinkedIn to make the unexpected announcement, Alx Preston – the founder of Heart Machine – revealed that the studio is all-but-set to shut down, writing:

“I have very difficult news today. We had been working on an unannounced title, funded by a publisher. This week, they decided to no longer move forward with it. Without this key income for the studio, any other immediate prospects or other funds, nearly everyone at the studio had to be laid off. It's devastating.”

The full statement can be found HERE and includes plenty of pleasantries towards all those affected at the studio. In terms of what will become of Heart Machine, Preston claimed that “navigating an increasingly challenging industry has been extremely difficult, and I’m not sure yet what’s next for Heart Machine to survive. However, we'll keep pushing to build a path while we are still here.”

This is not the first time that the studio has run into issues, with the team announcing just over a year ago that they had laid off a number of developers – leading to the premature ceasing of work on their Early Access open-world rogue-like Hyper Light Breaker.

Still, this latest announcement is highly unfortunate to see. Given their pedigree, it is safe to say that whatever Heart Machine were working on likely would have found a solid audience of players/fans. Alas, we will seemingly never find out.

KitGuru says: Are you disappointed by this latest announcement? Did you have high hopes for Hyper Light Breaker? Let us know down below.

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