The latest studio to fall into the consistent line of developer bankruptcy is Swedish developer GRIN, responsible for hits like Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1 & 2, as well as the downloadable title that sparked a remake revolution, Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Sadly though, the last three titles out of the 12-year old company’s gate; Bionic Commando, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, and Terminator Salvation; fared less dramatically with both consumers and critics. Officials from the company mark the recent filing for bankruptcy up to too many payment delays from publishers, and founders Bo and Ulf Andersson specifically lament the unfortunate shutting down of an “unreleased masterpiece.”
Good news may be on the horizon yet for the developer’s employees, as reports from news firm Develop indicates a forming a new company, Outbreak Studios, which will have a focus on downloadable titles for Xbox Live, Playstation Network and PSP, in addition to games for the iPhone and Windows PC.
Personally, I wouldn’t call them “victims to the economic times”. I’d say they set themselves up for downfall. You simply CANNOT take on a project like a Bionic Commando sequel and then half ass it.
iPhone games…..a fitting punishment.
Victims of the economic times my ass. If you make Bionic Commando and then Terminator Salvation–arguably two of the WORST games this generation, then you deserve to go out of business.
When they realized that they’d struck gold with Bionic Commando: Rearmed, essentially a blueprint of how remakes should be executed, they should’ve started looking for another Capcom game to remake.
But no instead they permanently kill the Bionic Commando franchise and make a crappy tie-in to a crappy movie.