Former Mass Effect director Casey Hudson announced in 2021 that he was founding a new studio called Humanoid – eventually christened Humanoid Origin. Today, the studio has announced that it’s shutting down.
“Earlier today, we informed our staff that Humanoid Origin will be shutting down,” the company says in a LinkedIn post. “Despite efforts to shield the studio from broader challenges in the industry, an unexpected shortfall of funding left us unable to sustain operations. We’re heartbroken that we will not be able to bring our new science-fiction universe to completion. Our main concern at this time however is for our team, and we are committed to supporting them in their transition to new employment.”
Humanoid’s debut project was set to be a “multi-platform AAA game, focusing on character-driven narrative in an all-new science-fiction universe.” Obviously that sounds like exactly what you’d expect from the director of the Mass Effect series, but this new game was never properly unveiled – all we really got were the handful of concept art pieces shown on the studio’s official website.
There are loads of new studios out there with veteran BioWare talent building new things, but it remains to be seen if any of them can match the historical successes of franchises like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Exodus from Archetype Entertainment is in development and regularly dropping lore teasers. Survival game Nightingale hit early access this year with its own notable BioWare pedigree, but developer Inflexion Games suffered layoffs after revealing the game “hasn’t been commercially successful enough to continue development at our studio’s previous size.”
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