Publisher NetEase is downsizing its internal development teamsincluding closing Fantastic pixel castleaccording to studio head and game director Greg Street. Fantastic Pixel Castle was founded in 2023 under the leadership of Street, an influential designer in both World of Warcraft to Blizzard and League of Legends on Riot Games.
Fantastic Pixel Castle is developing an original fantasy multiplayer game codenamed Ghost.
News of Fantastic Pixel Castle's imminent closure comes just weeks after Street announced that “his studio's time as the main studio at NetEase Games is coming to an end” and that the team is seeking new financial support.
Street said there's “still a chance we can secure funding” after Fantastic Pixel Castle's scheduled closure on November 17, but has previously noted the difficulty of finding a sponsor for a large-scale MMO.
“While there is still a chance that we will be able to secure funding after this date, it will depend on how much of the team remains.” Street posted this on LinkedIn.. “While we would love to make our game, our main priority is helping our developers find work, whether at indie studio Fantastic Pixel Castle 2.0 or many other good (and hopefully stable) gaming and tech companies.”
The street was famous World of Warcraft community under the pseudonym Ghostcrawler, and from 2008 to 2013 he worked as a lead systems designer at Blizzard when the game was at the peak of its popularity. After Blizzard he joined Riot Games work on League and, later, an untitled MMO in development set in the world of League of Legends.. Street left his leadership position at Riot in 2023.
The closure of NetEase Fantastic Pixel Castle follows a mass exodus of the publisher from studios outside of China. Those affected include Worlds Untold Studios, a Vancouver developer led by former BioWare creative Mac Walters; Jar of Sparks, a Seattle studio founded in 2022 by Xbox veteran Jerry Hook; and Ouka Studio, Tokyo developer Visions of Mana for Square Enix.
In February Street expressed confidence that his studio will avoid NetEase cuts.telling Polygon, “I feel like we're in a stronger position now because NetEase has clearly assessed their portfolio and decided that they want to focus on our game.”
On LinkedIn, Street thanked “our supporters at NetEase” and “literally dozens of people who tried to help us raise capital.”
“There's still a chance that one of them will work, and it really only takes one,” he said.
