Paladin Studios Has Shut Down After Almost 19 Years

by
William D’Angelo
, posted 2 days ago / 1,954 Views

Netherlands-based Paladin Studios announced it has shut down after nearly 19 years in business.

The studio blamed the lack of enough work in recent months to remain financially stable. Those who have been laid off will receive a severance package, while the studio is able to not go into debt. The existing games from the studio will continue to receive technical support.

“Yesterday, our quest came to an end, and we have closed the studio,” said the studio in a blog post.

“For almost 19 years, we have poured our hearts and souls into creating games that make you smile. Starting as a bootstrapped mini studio in 2005, we followed the twists and turns of the game industry and slowly but steadily found our place in it. Over these years, the studio peaked at 55 people. As of this writing we were 45 people, each and every one of them a brilliant mind and kind heart, and together they truly created magic.

“We also worked with incredible partners such as Nintendo, Apple Arcade, Netflix, Zeptolab, Bandai Namco, and many others. Last but not least, our games are being played by millions of people, earning prestigious awards and bringing smiles to people all over the world. This was a dream come true – in fact, for us, it was THE dream come true.

“However, over the past months, we unfortunately failed to land enough work to cover our burn-rate. Yesterday we hit an inflection point for our financial security. Going further with the current outlook would have been an irresponsible decision that would have likely caused insolvency. We have therefore taken this step to ensure a proper winding down, where all employees are given proper severance and the studio remains debt-free.

“Please reach out if you have any open vacancies for design, programming, 2D art, 3D art, production, QA, management or support staff – all skills are here, and these people are among the finest in the industry.

“Our existing games will stay alive, and we intend to keep providing (technical) support for them in the future.

“We want to thank the team, our partners, and our fellow industry colleagues for all the good times. It truly was a wild ride, and we wouldn’t want to have missed it for the world.”

Paladin Studios has worked on Nailed It! Baking Bash, Cut the Rope Remastered, Good Job!, Stormbound, Amazing Katamari Damacy, and more.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.