Sony is shutting down Concrete Genie developer PixelOpus, one of the smallest teams within PlayStation Studios.
Writing on Twitter, the PixelOpus team said:
Dear friends, our PixelOpus adventure has come to an end. As we look to new futures, we wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to the millions of passionate players who have supported us, and our mission to make beautiful, imaginative games with heart.
We are so grateful!
In a statement to IGN, a Sony spokesperson said that the company “regularly evaluates its portfolio and the status of studio projects to ensure they meet the organization’s short and long-term strategic objectives. As part of a recent review process, it has been decided that PixelOpus will close on June 2.
Since the release of Concrete Genie, the studio had been working on an unannounced game in collaboration with Sony Pictures Animation. That project has now been cancelled, though we have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll discover plenty about it in the coming weeks and months.
PixelOpus was founded in 2013 as Sony sought to follow up on the success of indie games such as Journey with an internal effort, building out of a game development program for students at Carnegie Mellon University with a small group of nine led by a pair of industry veterans.
Their first game, the rhythm game Entwined, launched in 2014, but the studio had a much grander opportunity with Concrete Genie that launched in 2019. Following an artistically gifted teenager, Ash, as he wields a magic paintbrush to bring life back to an abandoned town, it was generally well received.
In our Concrete Genie review, Dom said, “Relaxed and thoughtful, beautiful and moving, Concrete Genie is a delightfully different game that plays out like an interactive animated movie with bags of character.”
