Paradox Interactive has announced it is parting ways with BattleTech developer Harebrained Schemes, citing “strategic and creative priorities”. The seperation follows last week’s news that Harebrained Schemes’ The Lamplighters League has been a $22m flop for Paradox.
Harebrained was founded in 2011 by Mitch Gitelman and Jordan Weisman (co-creator of the BattleTech and MechWarrior universe), and was acquired by Paradox Interactive in 2018 after it published the studio’s critically acclaimed BattleTech game that same year.
The Lamplighters League, which launched earlier this month, was Harebrained’s first release as a Paradox studio but it arrived to middling reviews and failed to generate much commercial interest. Paradox went as far as to call its commercial performance a “big disappointment” last week, when it admitted the pulp strategy game was unlikely to recoup its development costs, resulting in a $22.7m USD write-down.
Soon after, Paradox confirmed it had laid off a substantial portion of Harebrained, and while it did not provide numbers (a former employee claimed the layoffs affected around 80% of the team on Resetera), it did admit “staff was significantly reduced over the summer as the game entered its last phase of development and launch preparations.”