Housemarque puts Stormdivers on hold to focus on biggest project yet

Housemarque’s CEO Ilari Kuittinen has penned an open letter celebrating 25 years of the studio’s existence. The developer has been making game’s since the mid 90’s but really shot into the spotlight with Resogun. Since then it has released Matterfall and then announced the battle royale title Stormbreakers as well as a yet unrevealed AAA title for an undisclosed publisher. Stormbreakers took a bit of a hit after the battle royale genre got even more crowded, and now Housemarque’s Ilari has confirmed that the game has been put on a hiatus.

The reason for this hiatus is because now every member of the 80 person studio is working on the unannounced triple-A project which is being billed as Housemarque’s biggest game to date. In the open letter Illari wrote:

Looking back on where we started and where the games industry is today is quite astonishing as back then we could only dream of living in such a digital age that players could instantly download games directly to their device(s), and now there are so many amazing, critically acclaimed games coming out that it’s hard to keep up with the influx of launches, much less play them all. However, our continuing goal remains in maintaining our standards and develop unique, world-class games for our fans while still providing a great workplace that supports our team in developing professionally as well as living full personal lives. We also recognize that this work is never-ending, as demands for creating top-quality games are getting ever higher and the bar is raised every year. 

So now we are focused on delivering our most ambitious and biggest game to date, putting every other project on hold, including the development of Stormdivers. It is great that the whole company can come together to deliver this game, which will define the next evolution of Housemarque. We are very humbled to have amazing support from our partner over the course of the past few years, and this support has continuously grown on a monthly basis. 

What does this mean for Stormdivers then? Well, it hasn’t been outright cancelled but the game’s priority has obviously shifted downwards in light on this other project Housemarque is working on. There are no clues as to what this project could be or who the unnamed publisher is, or when we can expect more news. What is likely is that this new project will appear on the next generation of consoles. It could be a cross-generational title for all we know. Housemarque will share more in the coming months.

Source: Housemarque