Nintendo Partner Paladin Studios Closes Its Doors After “Almost 19 Years”

Netherlands indie developer Paladin, who worked with Nintendo in 2020 on the Switch eShop title Good Job!, has announced it has “closed the studio” after “almost 19 years”.

Apart from Nintendo, the 45-person studio (which began life in 2005 and peaked at 55 people at one stage) worked with various other “incredible partners” such as Apple Arcade, Netflix and Bandai Namco on franchises such as Cut The Rope, Tamagotchi and the Katamari series.

In recent months it’s struggled to “land enough work” and is now at an inflection point for its financial security.

“Going further with the current outlook would have been an irresponsible decision that would have likely caused insolvency. We have therefore taken this step to ensure a proper winding down, where all employees are given proper severance and the studio remains debt-free.”

Although it’s shutting up shop, technical support for its existing titles will apparently continue in the future.

Just earlier this week, a few other smaller-sized teams under Private Division (owned by Take-Two Interactive) were reportedly shut down. This adds to an already incredibly tough year for the industry, which has seen job losses in the hundreds and thousands at major companies like Microsoft and Sony.