The Most Painful Video Game Studio Closures In History

From canceled video game projects to the sunsetting of entire gaming platforms such as Google Stadia, the industry and its proponents as we know them have had some tough choices to make over the years. Nothing, however, compares to some of the most brilliant, hardworking, and talented developer studios either collapsing no thanks to internal reasons or getting discontinued by their respective owners. 

This piece highlights some of the most heartbreaking video game studio closures in history that packed a ton of potential and were on their way toward greatness if they hadn’t bagged it already.  

Dreams And Hopes Laid To Nothing But Waste

In case you feel like another studio has to be on this list, I’d appreciate a comment below telling us all about it. 

1. Pandemic Studios

Pandemic Studios, tracing its origins back to 1998, has a number of high-class IPs under its belt, with many of them somehow staying relevant even to this day, such as my all-time favorite The Saboteur. However, perhaps what Pandemic is missed for the most are the Mercenaries and Star Wars: Battlefront franchises, with both of these retaining their iconic statuses as long as the studio persisted. 

Now, Mercenaries is nowhere in the picture, with the third game in the series — titled Mercenaries 3: No Limits — getting canceled alongside the closure of the studio in 2009. This Kotaku article from 2010, however, has some footage of the title from when it was being worked on. As for Star Wars: Battlefront, the franchise continues to receive more iterations, but are they anything like what Pandemic used to dish out? 

You tell me. 

2. Westwood Studios

Command & Conquer. Does this name ring a bell or four? Westwood Studios, first formed in 1985, has been responsible for this riveting RTS franchise, effectively keeping the genre alive back in the day, which is now a relic of its former glory.

Being one of the very pioneers of this category, Westwood was dissolved at the hands of Electronic Arts in 2003 sadly, and even since that happened, the RTS genre has done everything but thrived. 

3. Clover Studio

We’re never getting a God Hand sequel, are we? I understand how this particular game — and one of my childhood’s best memories — doesn’t have much of a fan base, but here are two more names that do: Viewtiful Joe and Okami. Excellent game franchises that have gotten nowhere sadly, especially Okami, which will still blow your mind if you play it today in 2024.

4. Visceral Games

Visceral was yet another one of EA-owned studios that didn’t live to see the light of 2024’s day. Its most noteworthy accomplishment is the creation of the Dead Space franchise, with the key person being Glen Schofield here, but it’s also recognized across the board for the Army of Two series of third-person shooter titles. Visceral just made great stuff back in the day, until it didn’t… 

EA pulled the plug on the studio in 2017, making it seem as if single-player games had no future. Years later, that is not even remotely the case, thanks to the likes of God of War Ragnarok, Ghost of Tsushima, and multiple others coming out and killing it out there. 

5. Sierra Entertainment

For what introduced numerous breakthroughs in the video gaming sphere in the direction of sound and music design, heck the first adventure game in the world too, for crying out loud,  Sierra Entertainment didn’t see a fitting conclusion. The proud creator of the popular Lords of Magic and Lords of the Realm was closed in 2008 when its parent Vivendi Games combined with Activision. 

The brand itself isn’t quite dead yet, considering Sierra was later revived by Activision, but it’s no longer the same studio, nor does it have strategies and goals of its own to act on. At the moment, Microsoft owns Activision Blizzard King, and all pertinent companies and products.