Embracer Group’s closing of Campfire Cabal, a studio owned by THQ Nordic, was just confirmed. This may be the first of various closures as the group finds itself in a complicated position, after years of acquiring properties, developers, and publishers. These included Coffee Stain Studios, Saber Interactive, and most notably, Crystal Dynamics, Gearbox Interactive, and Deep Silver. Embracer’s restructuring process was announced in June and includes the closure of studios and termination of projects, some of them yet unannounced or with low projected returns.

The closure of Campfire Cabal was discovered when Executive Producer Bruno-Christian Belibou shared the news on LinkedIn. The decision was revealed by Embracer in June, the same time when the restructuring process was announced. According to Belibou, attempts were made to “find a new home for this team, [but] time was our biggest enemy to do so.”

Campfire Cabal was officially founded in September 2022 and included veterans having worked on Expeditions: Rome, the Hitman series, and Hunt: Showdown. The focus of the studio was on high-quality narrative-driven RPGs and the team was working on an as of yet unannounced game. Unfortunately, it will never come to fruition, at least under the company where it originated from.

Even with so many strong IPs under its wing, including Tomb Raider, Embracer Group is still likely to shut down more studios until the end of March 2024. This was in large  part due to the collapse of a “transformative” deal worth $2 billion with another industry player, who remains mysterious up to this day.