The Canadian studio Hothead Games has become another casualty of 2024. Today, December 20, information surfaced about the official closure of the team, renowned for the mobile sniper simulator Kill Shot.
The sad news was announced in the studio's profile on LinkedIn by its President and CEO, Ian Wilkinson. According to him, the studio's last working day was last Friday, December 13. The studio had been in operation for 18 years.
The post revealed that Hothead Games failed to adapt to the new market realities.
After achieving significant success in the mid-2010s with franchises such as Rivals at War and Kill Shot, in the 2020s, the studio focused on idle projects. However, according to Ian, they were too late in embracing such games and missed the market.
As a result, it was decided to return to their roots and start developing console titles (the company's three founders are former employees of Radical Entertainment). For some time, Hothead Games worked as a contractor, creating custom games and handling console title porting.
Over the past 12 months, the studio had been working on a project for an AAA franchise. The plan was to release the game simultaneously on mobile devices and PC/consoles. However, by the end of the year — within a span of just two weeks — both the mobile and console publishers abandoned the project.
“The only option left was to declare the company bankrupt,” Ian wrote.