Star Wars: Hunters Writer Shutters Studio Based by Torchlight, Diablo Creator Earlier than It Might Announce Its New Sport

Zynga has formally shuttered Echtra Video games, the event studio behind Torchlight 3, which had been engaged on an unannounced cross-platform ARPG within the 4 years since its acquisition.

IGN can affirm the San Francisco-based studio can be shut down by the top of the month. Whereas we do not have an actual variety of people impacted, LinkedIn has 61 individuals who checklist their present job on the studio.

Zynga has offered the next assertion to IGN:

Zynga has made the troublesome determination to stop operations at its Echtra studio, ending improvement on future titles and lowering roles. This determination is a part of a strategic realignment of the corporate’s assets and priorities. We’ll work carefully with impacted workers so they’re handled with the utmost respect and consideration as we navigate this troublesome course of.

Echtra Video games was based by Max Schaefer, one of many co-founders of Torchlight developer Runic Video games, and previously a co-founder of Blizzard North and co-creator of Diablo. Schaefer left Runic after his fellow co-founders equally departed the studio, and based Echtra underneath investor Good World to work on a Torchlight MMO. Over time, the sport’s imaginative and prescient shifted, finally changing into Torchlight Frontiers and later Torchlight 3. In 2021, Echtra Video games was acquired by Zynga, leaving Torchlight 3 within the palms of Good World and beginning work on “a brand new, but to be introduced RPG for cross-platform play” alongside CSR Racing and Star Wars: Hunters developer NaturalMotion.

Sadly, Echtra Video games’ RPG was by no means introduced or proven. It’s unclear exactly why Echtra was shuttered, although its closure comes simply three months after Zynga introduced it’ll shut down NaturalMotion-developed Star Wars: Hunters later this yr — a choice that was itself introduced simply 9 months after the sport launched. Notably, Zynga is a subsidiary of Grand Theft Auto writer Take-Two Interactive, which slowly dismantled after which bought off its Non-public Division publishing label earlier this yr. The writer additionally laid off round 5% of its workforce simply over a yr in the past and canceled a number of initiatives.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You’ll find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Obtained a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.