Liquid Swords, the Swedish studio behind the open-city crime game Samson, has shut down roughly six months after the game's release. Founder and chief executive Christofer Sundberg announced the closure in a LinkedIn post, Destructoid reported, after bankruptcy filings were reported by Swedish outlet Breakit.
Liquid Swords is closing its doors. I've done everything I can to make this succeed, and I'm very proud of what we achieved together. Building a studio, creating Samson and releasing it on PC and consoles took an enormous amount of work from people who cared deeply about what we were making.
The Stockholm District Court issued a bankruptcy order against the studio on October 12, according to Breakit's reporting as relayed by Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer. Staff had gone at least two months without pay, and it was the employees themselves who petitioned to have the company declared bankrupt. Their unpaid salaries are covered by the Swedish state wage guarantee.
Accounts of the headcount differ. GamesIndustry.biz and GameSpot both reported that all 27 employees were being dismissed as part of the process, while PC Gamer and Rock Paper Shotgun put the number at close to 30. The studio had already cut staff during Samson's development: GamesIndustry.biz reported a reduction the company attributed to "the studio's long-term sustainability," and both PC Gamer and Rock Paper Shotgun reported that about half the team was laid off partway through the project.
Samson's rights are up for sale
The studio's administrator, Swedish law firm Cirio, published a preliminary bidding document for potential buyers, GamesIndustry.biz reported. The assets for sale consist of the intellectual property rights attributable to Samson and the company's other intellectual property, together with related development assets, equipment and inventory. Cirio stated that employment contracts do not transfer with the business, and that a buyer would need to enter into new contracts with each employee. The bidding window was set to close on October 21.
The same document put Samson's commercial performance on record: as of October 14, the game had sold 151,900 copies and generated SEK 24.1 million, about $2.4 million.
Samson launched on PC in April to mixed reviews, holding a 51 average on Metacritic and peaking at 2,722 concurrent players on Steam that month, according to Destructoid. A PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S version released in September performed better. Sundberg said the console editions "did far better" but that it "wasn't enough to save the studio," GameSpot reported, and he said separately that the console success "wasn't enough to get the company across the finish line."
Sundberg co-founded Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios and spent more than a decade there before starting Liquid Swords in 2020. NetEase acquired an undisclosed minority stake in the company in 2022. Samson is the studio's only release. Sundberg said he is in discussions with all parties involved about how support for the game can continue.
