Sad news, folks. Munich, Germany-based independent developer Mimimi Games have announced that they’re closing doors following the release of Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, which RPS only recently described as the studio’s best work yet. The developer plan to support Shadow Gambit with patches and additions, but are otherwise ceasing development and will “slowly ramp down” in the coming months. Founders Dominik Abé and Johannes Roth are even now trying to relocate the studio’s few dozen employees, who will be paid a bonus taken from Shadow Gambit profits to ease the transition.
Why are Mimimi closing down? Sheer exhaustion, it seems. “As we look back at our 15-year journey crafting games (and crying about it), we feel grateful for the incredible love and support we received from all of you,” reads a post from the founders on the developer’s website. “We cherished every game we made and feel proud of what we were able to accomplish as a studio. At the same time, dedicating the past decade and a half of our lives working on increasingly ambitious games took a heavy personal toll on us and our families. After the release of Shadow Gambit we decided it was the right time to prioritize our well-being and to pull the brakes instead of signing up for another multi-year production cycle.”
Mimimi developers were told of the decision at an on-site meeting today, just before the public announcement. “We will be doing everything in our power to support our team, and we are now starting to reach out to our friends in the industry to find suitable new jobs for all Mimimis,” the post continues. “If you have open positions and are interested in hiring our amazing talents, please get in touch via [email protected]. Thanks to the recent launch of Shadow Gambit, we are also able to pay out a bonus to all employees to help them during their transition.”
The post concludes by thanking Mimimi’s players, the industry peers who mentored Abé and Roth through the process of founding the studio, business partners Kowloon Nights, THQ Nordic and Daedalic, and two arts funding bodies – the Bavarian regional games fund FFF Bayern and the German games grant of the BMWK. “While we don’t know what the future will hold for the both of us, we still love video games,” the founders add. “We had a really good run and we are truly grateful for all of this!”
It’s a real blow to see Mimimi call it quits. I’m not as familiar with the company’s work as Katharine, but I played Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun one wintry holiday evening a few years ago, and was delighted by the resulting upsurge of memories of the old Commandos series and isometric stealth in general. As our reviewer Tim Stone (RPS in peace) put it, the game “awakens a genre that has been in deep hibernation for more than a decade”, though it stands apart as a beautiful creation in its own right. In her Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew review, meanwhile, Katharine summarised the studio’s final game as “like a cannonball to the chest”, praising its larger, open-ended maps and greater emphasis on supernatural characters and abilities.
It sounds like the decision to close may have been recent. Only this July, Abé spoke to us about potential directions for a future game.
We wish the very best of luck to everybody affected.
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