Moss developer Polyarc is closing down

Polyarc, the studio behind the beloved Moss series of mousey VR adventures has announced that they are shutting down.

The studio posted the sad news on LinkedIn, saying:

“Today is the end of an era for Polyarc.

After nearly 12 years riding the joyous rollercoaster of emotions that is making video games, our time together has come to an end. As we wind down active development, we are saying our farewells to each other.

Working together over all of these years has been an honor. Bringing surprise and delight to those who played our games has been a privilege. Thank you to everyone at Polyarc, our work is now finished.

Polyarc has been home to exceptional developers across all disciplines. If you are hiring, please see the link below.

Thank you to everyone who has been part of this journey.”

Polyarc was founded in 2015 by former Bungie and Rockstar employees looking to dive straight into the nascent virtual reality market. A few years later, they gained critical acclaim for their first game, Moss, a VR exclusive adventure (initially a timed exclusive for PSVR) in which the player guides and assists Quill, a little mousey hero, on their adventure. This was followed in 2022 by a direct sequel, again starting as a PSVR timed exclusive.

Virtual reality gaming stagnated over the past half decade, and while Sony and Meta both released new headsets in 2023, both have since effectively abandoned the market in the years since. Polyarc tried to spin the world of Moss into a multiplayer game, Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss, last year, but with the writing on the wall for VR development, they also announced and released flat screen versions of their first two games this year, bundled together in Moss: The Forgotten Relic – incidentally, the game was just updated with local co-op and it’s currently on sale.

Sadly, it seems that this hasn’t been successful enough to sustain the studio’s future, and if they’ve been unable to secure any further investment for new projects,

Naturally we hope everyone is able to find new opportunities, though this is a difficult time for the industry at large.

Source: LinkedIn

Tags: Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss, Moss, Moss: Book II, Moss: The Forgotten Relic, PSVR 2