"Perfect Dark, the slick-looking reboot of Rare's sci-fi shooter series? Canned, and the studio behind it shuttered. A Wonder Woman game from Monolith? Canceled taking the beloved studio behind No One Lives Forever and Shadow of Mordor down with it. An EA-published Black Panther game from some former Monolith devs that would have reportedly featured a version of Mordor's popular Nemesis System? Dead and the studio behind it closed, too."
"And these are just the ones that we know about. I'd bet a lot more games were canceled in 2025 as publishers continue to focus more and more on fewer franchises that can be reliably counted on to turn a profit. And as noted, many of these cancellations led to layoffs and studios being closed, a problem worth talking about separately, because in 2025, these cuts and closings happened a lot."
Many high-profile projects were canceled in 2025, including Perfect Dark, a Monolith Wonder Woman game, an EA-published Black Panther, a Titanfall extraction spin-off, a God of War multiplayer project, and a Transformers title. Multiple studios closed following those cancellations, and layoffs continued across the industry, with nearly 10,000 developers losing jobs. Publishers increasingly concentrated resources on a smaller number of reliable franchises, driving more cancellations and consolidation. Additional pressures included controversial AI implementations, executive decisions perceived as greedy, price increases, and persistent signs of systemic instability and decline within the games industry.
Read at Kotaku
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