Lightforge Games is putting work on its upcoming RPG project ORCS on hold indefinitely, with the team reduced to a skeleton crew as the few remaining crew members look to determine their next course of action.
In a ___ Message Posted on the game’s website and social media channels yesterday, Lightforge cited the publisher’s lack of funding as the reason it has no means to continue work on Project ORCS any longer. To mitigate, the team immediately decided to pull the plug.
“We’re making this call now so we can support our amazing team: give them time to stabilize, work together to help people re-enter the job market, and bring their passion to life.” Finding new positions to continue making games,” Lightforge says in the statement.
The team will be shutting down its Discord and social channels in the coming days. After that, the rest of the staff will “determine what might be a viable path forward for the project and the studio.”
Lightforge was formed in 2020 as a remote standalone studio comprised of former Blizzard and Epic (mainly Fortnite) developers. Accordingly LinkedIn pagehe hired between 11 and 50 staff members with the goal of “changing the way the world plays RPGs.”
Project ORCS was Lightforge’s first project, first revealed just three months ago in February. The ambitious RPG aims to combine the world-building and interactive storytelling of tabletop role-playing games with traditional co-op gameplay. Players create their own fantasy world using the built-in game editor and then embark on quests within it. It was more or less a “Build your own Dungeons & Dragons”, dice rolls and all, hence why “ORCS” stood for “Online Roleplaying with Collaborative Storytelling”. Despite the game being cancelled, it’s unclear if Project ORCS will make it. Never see the light of day.
Unfortunately, Lightforge isn’t the only small studio struggling with a dry well of video game venture financing. Deliver Us Mars developer Keoken Interactive was recently forced to lay off nearly its entire staff for the same reason. The industry has been in a wounded state for the past year and a half, with Microsoft shutting down Tango Gameworks and Arcane Austin earlier this week and more than 10,000 layoffs this year alone.