Another Former Mass Effect Dev's New Studio Is Facing Financial Woes
World's Untold is "pausing operations"
by Khayl Adam · Push SquareIn a strange bookend to the week, it seems another former Mass Effect senior developer's new undertaking is feeling the current industry pressure. Worlds Untold, established by NetEase Games and led by ME trilogy writer Mac Walters, is "pausing operations" until sufficient funding can be found.
Walters released a statement announcing that studio employees will be free to seek employment elsewhere as leadership attempts to find a new partner (thanks, VGC). This is quite an odd situation, as NetEase Games only established the team in November 2023, based in Canada. Walters wrote: "It's hard to find the right words for this, but I wanted to share that we've made the very difficult decision to pause operations at Worlds Untold while we search for a new partner to help bring our vision to life."
Financial certainty is in short supply these days. Fellow BioWare veteran Casey Hudson's outfit, Human Origin, announced the cancellation of its game on Monday, along with the studio's closure. Walters does leave on a somewhat positive note, so perhaps there's more to the story: "While we're pausing for now, this isn't goodbye—there's more to come, and we look forward to sharing the next chapter with you when the time is right."
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Two former Mass Effect leads announcing separate studio closures in the same week is somewhat unusual. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
[source linkedin.com, via videogameschronicle.com]
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About Khayl Adam
Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.
Comments 9
- 1
- twitchtvpat
- 2:20am
its not easy to start up a new team , but i'm sure there is plenty of opportunity for them. i wouldn't mind seeing sony hire some of these guys.
- 2
- Deoxyr1bose
- 2:34am
Everyone is always saying “indie teams will saving gaming!” but that glorifies the fact that indie teams are also struggling a lot financially, we just don’t hear about it. This is especially true in this post 2020 world where tons of gaming investments have slowed down.
- 3
- PuppetMaster
- 2:45am
I just don't get why some new indie devs thinks starting their 1st project with AAA scale is a good idea.
Why not start with a small project and if it a success they can slowly expand their project?
@PuppetMaster @Deoxyr1bose
In what way is this studio an indie team? are you guys serious?
- 5
- Major_Player
- 3:26am
It's going to be problematic for him to find further funding when he is already interviewed with NetEase
- 6
- nessisonett
- 3:38am
@Deoxyr1bose Are you high? NetEase owning a dev doesn’t make them an indie developer?
@nessisonett Tencent has shares in Larian. Larian are still technically independent. Getting finance is not the same as being owned. Arrowhead is Independent even if Helldivers 2 was financed by Playstation. Another one is Dave the Diver which was financed by Krafton.
- 8
- nessisonett
- 5:23am
@breakneck None of the studios you’ve named are indie devs. None of the games produced by those devs are indie games. I’d love to see them even try to pretend to be indie devs in the presence of Localthunk, ConcernedApe or Poncle.
@nessisonett I'm just saying the term indie has no meaning anymore. there is no definitive meaning for it. Because by that logic any game that has received funding or publishing help from Devolver Digital or Annapurna are not indie.
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