Directors from Warner Bros.’ defunct MultiVersus have launched a new independent studio, Airlock Games.
The Warner Bros. platform fighting game, MultiVersus, shutdown on May 30, after Warner Bros. Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels told investors that the game was not performing as expected, revealing its “games business […] is substantially underperforming its potential.”
Now, Justin Fischer and Brock Feldman — who have “collectively been laid off eleven times” — have launched their own indie studio.
“Watching what’s been happening in the western AAA space in the post-pandemic period has been nothing short of horrific,” the pair write on their website.
“Watching a bunch of legacy companies respond to emerging market challenges by laying off tens of thousands of our peers (and us!) to prop up quarterly numbers. Watching them announce strategies that are entirely dependent on a dwindling list of over-used IP, sugar coated with trite expressions like, ‘surprise and delight our fans.’ Watching them run away from innovation like it was the plague. And watching them continue to fail and continue to double down.
“So, rather than turning ourselves over to our next corporate overlords/future severance granters and saying, ‘Thank you sir, may we have another?’, we decided to try something a little different.”
The team’s first solo venture, What the Stars Forgot, will launch in early access on Steam in December. A Kickstarter campaign is currently underway.
