Orcs Must Die! studio Robot Entertainment laid off 30 employees in March 2018, part of a "strategic shift" that also saw it cut the number of projects it had in the works from two to one. Today it cut even deeper by announcing that Orcs Must Die! Unchained, Hero Academy, and Hero Academy 2 are being closed.
"Making and supporting a game is a long and challenging journey. Along the way, there are plenty of highs and plenty of lows. The communities who play our games join us on these journeys. We know this decision affects our players as much as it does us," the studio said.
"We've kept these games operating at a financial loss for many months. Unfortunately, it's no longer sustainable for us to do so. We must shift our focus to future games and make our investments there."
Hero Academy is a relatively old game, having been released in 2012 (and "has been technically obsolete for a long time now," Robot said), but Hero Academy 2 came out less than a year ago. Orcs Must Die! Unchained rolled out in April 2017, after roughly a year in open beta. All three games will be playable until 10 am CT on April 8, and Robot Entertainment said that all Orcs Must Die! Unchained and Heroes Academy 2 players will be given "a substantial free grant of hard and soft currencies" to blow while the games are still up, but there might be a bit of a wait (up to 24 hours) before the it appears.
The good news in all this is that Robot Entertainment confirmed that there will be no layoffs as a result of the closures. It's also expanded its development efforts back to two games, and said it hopes to announce both of them sometime this year.
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