After opening 5 years ago, V1 Interactive announces today that the studio will be closing down.
The studio’s closure was made public on March 8th, 2021 via the company’s Twitter account. The post thanks the employees of V1 as well as their community.
“We are sad to inform you that V1 Interactive is officially closing,” writes V1 Interactive in their announcement. “We want to thank all the talented people at V1, both past and present, who helped make the last 5 years wonderful. And a heartfelt thanks to the amazing community that supported us.”
V1 Interactive was founded by Marcus Letho, the co-creator of Halo and Game Director of Disintegration. Disintegration, released just last year, would be the sole title the company delivered. The game released to a mediocre reception but was praised for trying new ideas for the FPS genre. However, Disintegration “struggled to build a significant audience” leading to the studio shutting down multiplayer servers less than 6 months after its launch. Up until this announcement the developer was working on fixes and updates for Disintegration, sadly this will mark the end of those efforts.
The studio made an announcement about the multiplayer being shut down in November 2020, outlining that they “have made the difficult decision to remove Disintegration’s multiplayer modes from the game across all platforms.” But did make it clear that the “single player campaign will remain fully playable moving forward.”
Following the announcement V1 Interactive founder, Marcus Letho, shares that the well-being of the studio’s employees is a priority.
“We’ve been transparent with them about the state of things for months”, Letho writes, “and are making this decision now so they still have ample time to search for new jobs while being supported by our studio.”No specific reason was given for the company’s closure, though the underwhelming performance of its debut title, Disintegration, likely has a role to play in the decision.
