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 will likely be shut down by the tip of the month. Whereas we do not have an actual variety of people impacted, LinkedIn has 61 individuals who list their current job at the studio.
Zynga has supplied the next assertion to IGN:
Zynga has made the troublesome choice to stop operations at its Echtra studio, ending growth on future titles and lowering roles. This choice is a part of a strategic realignment of the corporate’s assets and priorities. We are going to 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 below investor Good World to work on a Torchlight MMO. Over time, the sport’s imaginative and prescient shifted, ultimately changing into Torchlight Frontiers and later Torchlight 3. In 2021, Echtra Video games was acquired by Zynga, leaving Torchlight 3 within the fingers of Good World and beginning work on “a new, yet to be announced 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 is unclear exactly why Echtra was shuttered, although its closure comes simply three months after Zynga introduced it would shut down NaturalMotion-developed Star Wars: Hunters later this 12 months — a call 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 Personal Division publishing label earlier this 12 months. The writer additionally laid off round 5% of its workforce simply over a 12 months in the past and canceled a number of tasks.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Yow will discover her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Acquired a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.