Celebrated RPG Developer May Be Shutting Down

Piranha Bytes is on the verge of closure, several industry sources have said. Currently owned by the Embracer Group subsidiary THQ Nordic, the celebrated RPG developer has been in business for nearly three decades.

Founded in 1997, the Essen, Germany-based studio is best known as the developer behind the iconic Gothic RPGs, as well as the Risen series. The studio has been focused on the Elex franchise over the past decade. While Piranha Bytes' games never achieved truly mainstream popularity, in part because their lack of polish made them an acquired taste of sorts, they have long been touted as some of the most inventive takes on the role-playing genre.

The studio may not get any more chances to add to its legacy, with the German video game podcast The Pod reporting that Piranha Bytes is currently on the verge of closure, citing sources familiar with the matter. The claim was independently verified by the Munich-based outlet GameStar, which has also discovered that the German government recently removed WIKI6—widely believed to be the codename for Elex 3—from its list of game development projects that received public funding. For clarity, WIKI6 was awarded €3 million in funding in 2023.

Year

Game

Platform(s)

2001

Gothic

PC

2002

Gothic 2

PC

2003

Gothic 2: Night of the Raven

PC

2006

Gothic 3

PC

2009

Risen

PC, Xbox 360

2012

Risen 2: Dark Waters

PC, PS3, Xbox 360

2014

Risen 3: Titan Lords

PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360

2017

Elex

PC, PS4, Xbox One

2022

Elex 2

PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

GameStar's sources claim that Embracer's cost-cutting efforts saw the company spend months trying to offload Piranha Bytes last year. After being unable to find a buyer for the studio, the Swedish gaming giant effectively disbanded its 30-something staff at the end of 2023. While the company itself still formally exists and Embracer continues to shop it around, all work on WIKI6 has been stopped as of early 2024, as per the same source. Germany's dismissal protections that prevent employers from laying off employees