The Chinese giant is steadily scaling back its investments after several years of active expansion into the West.
The news was shared by Paul Ehreth, founder of Anchor Point Studios and former lead designer of Control and Alan Wake II. After separating from NetEase, the studio will continue to operate as an independent company.
“We are now starting negotiations with potential investors and partners,” stated Ehreth.
The studio planned to create action games for PC and consoles. However, it has not made any announcements yet. The amount of funding required for development and further operations is also unknown.
NetEase founded Anchor Point in 2023. The studio is based in Spain but also has an office in the United States. The size of the funding was not disclosed, but Ehreth thanked the Chinese company for the support that helped build a “world-class” team.
Since the end of 2024, NetEase has closed or cut ties with nearly a dozen studios based in the U.S. or Europe. Among them are Worlds Untold, Jar of Sparks, T-Minus Zero, Fantastic Pixel Castle, and Jackalyptic Games. In early February, Mattel also bought back a stake in the mobile studio Mattel163 from the Chinese giant for $159 million.
As for NetEase itself, everything is stable. In 2025, the company earned $16.1 billion, with $13.2 billion coming from games (+10% year-over-year). The net profit of the entire company was $4.8 billion (+13.8%).