Free Radical Design reportedly facing closure as Embracer cost-cutting continues

Another victim of the ongoing restructuring program

Marco Wutz | Nov 8, 2023

Free Radical Design reportedly facing closure as Embracer cost-cutting continues /

Update (Dec. 11, 2023): It appears that Free Radical Design has been fully closed down now. Developers have been posting goodbye messages all day on social media and an error message that is depicted upon navigating to the official website of the studio is saying "404 Company Not Found :-(" now.

This confirms earlier reports about the studio's imminent closure, which is part of the large-scale job cuts and studio closures conducted in Embracer Group's ongoing restructuring program.

Free Radical Design website showing a goodbye message. — The goodbye message shown on the Free Radical website / Free Radical Design

Original (Nov. 8, 2023): It looks like Free Radical Design, a studio that was re-established two years ago, is the next developer under the umbrella of Embracer Group facing closure, according to VGC.

Based in Nottingham, UK, the studio was supposed to revive the old TimeSplitters series, but may now close down before getting a release out of the door. Consultations with the employees, which are required by UK law to last at least 30 days before actively making redundancies, are apparently already underway and things appear to be quite bleak with many workers having started to look for new positions.

Free Radical Design is reportedly facing closure / Free Radical Design

Embracer Group has been closing down studios left and right over the course of its ongoing cost-cutting program: Volition was closed down after delivering a failure with Saints Row and in a move very similar to the one made on Free Radical Design, newly established studio Campfire Cabal was axed before it could ever release a game. It was supposed to take over development of the Expeditions series.

The Swedish gaming powerhouse infamously went on a shopping spree in recent years that saw it acquire several development studios as well as high-profile IP like Tomb Raider and Lord of the Rings.

If Free Radical Design is closed down, this would put further pressure on the job market for game developers in the UK, which is already getting swamped due to layoffs at Creative Assembly, Frontier Developments, and Media Molecule.

Published Nov 8, 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