In 2017 Fantasy Flight, a juggernaut in the board game world thanks to stuff like Game of Thrones and Star Wars, opened a video game studio. Barely two years later, Fantasy Flight Interactive is closing its doors.
The idea had been for the studio to work in two directions: adapt existing Fantasy Flight games into video games, but also to make new games based on the licenses the company already held.
In that time the studio released one game, a digital adaptation of the Lord of the Rings card game that cut some important stuff from the tabletop version and pushed the game in a more Hearthstone-y direction.
Via Gamasutra, the closure was announced in a Linkedin post by studio head Tim Gerritsen, who wrote:
It’s with great sadness that I have to report that the decision has been made to close Fantasy Flight Interactive next month. I’m proud of the team and the game we’ve dedicated ourselves to for the past few years. It’s a been an amazing journey with even more amazing people. I’m going to do my best to get my team placed in new positions. I have programmers, designers, artists, QA staff and a producer to get placed in new roles and will do my best to do so quickly. Additionally, I’m now open to new opportunities myself since I will also be out of a job.
Other digital versions of Fantasy Flight games, like the upcoming Mansions of Madness, aren’t affected as they’re being developed externally and being published by Asmodee Digital.