The studio behind Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture has officially announced that they are “going dark” after a slew of recent layoffs. The Chinese Room took to their official blog to let fans in on recent events and what that means for the future.
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Dan Pinchbleck, the creative director over at The Chinese Room, went into further detail about the temporary closure due to financial pressure. Because of a recent health scare, the team collectively is taking time off to “recharge,” according to Pinchbleck.
When discussing the team’s “going dark” status, he had this to say:
“In fact, this has been on the cards since earlier this year. Back in June, I had a health scare – nothing life-threatening, but enough to pull me up short and make us have a serious think about things. This was right at the tail end of development on So Let Us Melt, following a long period of ongoing pitches and negotiations to secure the follow-up project for the studio. To cut a long story short, the situation – between financial pressures, trying to keep the lights on for the employed team, the stress of end-of-development, health issues – just wasn’t a tenable thing anymore. It was time to take a break, recharge, recover and have a good think about the future.
So we let our team go. Lay-offs are never pleasant, particularly when you’re all trying to wrap a game. We did our best to try and help the team secure new positions, and then we all – the whole team – threw everything we had at wrapping the game. It didn’t feel fair to anyone, least of all people who had spent a year working on a project, to have its completion and release overshadowed by news about the studio closing, so we’ve held off on the announcement until we felt we were clear of all of that.”
In his incredibly lengthy blog post, he also reiterates that this doesn’t mean the end for the studio; just a temporary set back. Games will continue to still be available, and present projects are still a priority by “pushing that forwards until it’s ready to throw a whole team at.”
To read more about the current status of the studio, and what Pinchbleck had to say about the drastic cut to resources, you can read his full statement right here. The good news, however, is that his open letter does end on a positive note:
“Is it the end of The Chinese Room? No, I don’t think so. But it’s the end of a chapter, and we hope you can all be patient with us whilst we figure out what happens next.”
