Piranha Bytes, the creator of Gothic, Elex, and Risen, has reportedly shut down

It seems like Piranha Bytes has shut its doors for good. While the studio hasn’t historically enjoyed what you’d call mainstream attention, as it’s focused on RPGs such as ELEX and Risen, its classic Gothic was hugely important back in the day, and remains a cult classic even today.

This information comes from the Polish gaming website CD-Action, which posted about the purported closure of Piranha Bytes. CD-Action has reportedly been in contact with one of Piranha Bytes’ employees, and they told them that the studio scuttled “on the last day of June.”

CD-Action claims that Piranha Bytes’ publisher, Embracer, had only provided enough funding to keep the studio afloat until June 2024, and with no further financing opportunities on the horizon, there was seemingly nothing else to be done. Interestingly, this suggests that Piranha Bytes was not on Embracer’s shortlist of game developers to shut down. German site GameStar further corroborates that Piranha Bytes has been shut down, but no official word has been announced from Embracer yet.

Piranha Bytes may be out of the picture, but a new hope is on the horizon with Pithead Studio

For those who are saddened by the apparent closure of Piranha Bytes, janky as the studio’s games might’ve been, it’s not all entirely grim news after all. Notably, Piranha Bytes veterans Björn Pankratz and Jennifer Pankratz appear to have kicked things off anew with Pithead Studio: a new indie-level operation that should allow them to stay in the gaming industry.

Instead of targeting AA-tier productions in the likeness of Piranha Bytes’ prior releases, Pithead is aiming to produce “immersive and fantastic indie games.” This is not particularly specific, granted, but it does imply a smaller and likely more manageable project scope, if nothing else. Pithead claims that it’s going to focus on “dense and dark action adventure games with deep stories and horror and RPG elements,” as per Game World Observer’s information.

For what it’s worth, the description certainly sounds like Gothic if you squint hard enough, though who knows how this new endeavor might develop.

Regardless of everything else, losing a tenured game development studio is always bad news. Piranha Bytes had decades of experience under its belt, and it’s sad to see it seemingly scattered in the wind in 2024. Dark times for the industry, indeed.