Gothic dev Piranha Bytes surrounded by closure rumors as part of Embracer cuts

Lots of clues, but nothing official

Update (January 23, 2024): Piranha Bytes have released a statement that confirms the studio's precarious position. 

"Yes, it's true," the studio wrote. "We, Piranha Bytes, are in a difficult situation." There is a strong theme of hope in the statement as well, though: "There are a lot of news about us circulating right now and this is out answer: Don't write us off yet!"

The statement reiterated the team's passion and determination to keep making video games, but it revealed that Piranha Bytes seemingly lost the backing of THQ Nordic and Embracer. "Now, we are focusing on this goal with all our strength and do whatever it takes to find a partner for this project," the post said.

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Original (January 18, 2024): Even if you only tangentially follow the industry-related side of gaming, you’ll know that Swedish gaming giant Embracer Group is executing a big cost reduction program at the moment. Some studios have been closed down entirely, others had to deal with layoffs – and with Embracer as the biggest provider of gaming jobs in the DACH (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) region, the German industry can’t escape the effects of these measures.

After Hamburg-based developer Fishlabs lost 50 employees to the cuts, which in turn led to the cancellation of a game codenamed Project Black, Essen-based developer Piranha Bytes may be next on the list of victims, according to clues pieced together by GamesWirtschaft. Most will know Piranha as the studio behind legendary RPG series Gothic, one of the defining titles of the Eurojank label, but it’s also the developer behind Risen and the Elex series.

Piranha Bytes has cult status among some RPG fans / Piranha Bytes

The Piranha Bytes website had all its content deleted and now only shows the company logo and necessary legal information, while its YouTube channel hasn’t been active since the end of November 2023. A GamesWirtschaft request for a statement from THQ Nordic, which owns all of Piranha’s IP, was greeted with nothing but silence, which doesn’t inspire confidence either. In October 2023, the publisher apparently went around looking for someone to acquire Piranha.

However, one of the biggest clues – the company’s current project, codenamed WIKI6, going missing from the German Federal Ministry of the Economy’s website, which oversees federal funding for game development – turned out to be a misunderstanding.

WIKI6 indeed went missing from the site, but the ministry stated that the project set for a 2026 launch, which it supports with €3.2 million Euro (around $3.4m USD), had simply been renamed to Currywurst and was still ongoing – at least to the ministry’s knowledge.

It may simply be the case that Piranha is keeping up its intention to finish the project in public in the hopes of attracting someone to buy the studio wholesale, saving it from layoffs or closure, as such a hefty funding grant would be quite an incentive for potential new owners. This €3.2m Euro grant ranks among the six highest ongoing funding efforts from the ministry for the industry in Germany.

Things are looking dicey for Piranha Bytes, which has been looking for a big hit for a while now, in any case, but nothing concrete seems to have been decided behind the scenes.

Among the completely closed studios under Embracer’s umbrella last year are Volition, Campfire Cabal, and Free Radical Design.

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