Funcom shutters Metal: Hellsinger studio in another round of layoffs

Funcom is shuttering Metal: Hellsinger developer The Outsiders as part of a wider round of layoffs, the company and studio founder David Goldfarb stated in a post on Bluesky.

The Outsiders — also (formerly) known as Funcom Stockholm — was home to roughly 60 staff, and had been active for about ten years. In a social media announcement, Goldfarb said the layoffs at Funcom affected the entire studio and that The Outsiders would be closing permanently.

Goldfarb’s statement recalled the studio’s past struggles — including ‘near-death experience’ when their earlier project Darkborn was canceled — and noted that Metal: Hellsinger itself emerged from that adversity. He said the team had once hoped to build “something even better,” and expressed a desire to continue in some new form, asking for support, job leads, and guidance for affected staff.

The closure follows Funcom’s recent announcement of company-wide layoffs as it shifts resources toward live-service development for Dune: Awakening. The timing was baffling to say the least, as the survival MMO — described by Funcom as “the biggest release in our 32-year history” — is the company’s most commercially successful title to date but was still affected by the cuts.

Funcom described the restructuring as “necessary” to reallocate resources from development to long-term operations and console preparation. The full scale of job cuts across Funcom’s global studios remains unclear.

Metal: Hellsinger is a rhythm-based metal shooter released on September 15, 2022, for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox platforms. The game was praised for its innovative, fast-paced gameplay that synchronized combat to a heavy metal soundtrack featuring vocalists like Serj Tankian and Alissa White-Gluz. It was generally well-received by critics and players, surpassing one million players within its first three months.