Embracer closes Campfire Cabal, future of the Expeditions series up in the air

Studio was planned to take over the tactical RPG series

Marco Wutz | Aug 7, 2023

Embracer closes Campfire Cabal, future of the Expeditions series up in the air /

Media giant Embracer Group has closed down Campfire Cabal, one of the game developers under its umbrella, according to a LinkedIn post made by a former employee (via Twitter) of the studio. Campfire Cabal had only been established in September 2022 under the leadership of Jonas Wæver, who previously worked for Logic Artists, the studio behind the Expeditions series.

Campfire Cabal was supposed to take over any future iterations of the tactical RPG series, but with its closure the franchise’s future is up in the air. Expeditions: Rome, the latest game under the brand, was the most successful iteration yet, garnering critical and popular acclaim for its gameplay as well as narrative elements.

In the title, you play the role of a Roman legate commanding their own legion in wars around the Mediterranean, building up your special task force of strong fighters to do missions with, which contain your typical XCOM-style tactical turn-based battles.

An ancient military camp. — Expeditions: Rome is the latest and most successful entry into Logic Artists' series / Logic Artists

Embracer is cutting spending in the form of a big restructuring process at the moment, a reverse of its shopping spree policy from the previous years, which included Tomb Raider and some of the publishing rights to the Lord of the Rings IP, among many other assets.

In 2022, a mysterious business deal worth around $2 billion to Embracer fell through at the last minute, which is likely one of the reasons for the company now having to cut back costs.

Embracer has made deals with New Line Cinema about new Lord of the Rings movies as well as with Amazon about a new Lord of the Rings MMO that the company hopes will bring in more money in the future. Recent release Remnant 2, which was published by Embracer’s Gearbox, was a surprise hit and probably helped things a little bit as well. The company further expects the upcoming PayDay 3 and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine to be commercial successes, according to its latest financial report.

Published Aug 7, 2023

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg