Rime and Song Of Nunu developers Tequila cancel game and lay off staff

Studio restructuring “to concentrate on the development of only one game”

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Riot Forge

Ah, this makes for sore reading. Spanish developers Tequila Works have cancelled a game and made a “small” number of layoffs in the face of financial difficulties.

“With deep regret, we must inform of the decision to cancel an unannounced game,” reads a post from Tequila on LinkedIn. “This tough decision means we will be restructuring the studio to concentrate on the development of only one game. These changes will have an impact to a small number of roles at the studio.

“This is an incredibly difficult time, and our focus is to provide the support and guidance to those affected,” it goes on.

Tequila remain best known for Rime, a first-class graduate of the Ico-meets-Zelda school of small children exploring emotive fantasy worlds that are probably metaphors for something, but they’re also co-developers and publishers of The Sexy Brutale, one of my personal favourite time-rewindy puzzlers. Their last game was a League Of Legends spin-off, Song Of Nunu. Katharine (RPS in peace) called it “a heartfelt, winsome platformer that doesn’t require any knowledge of League Of Legends to enjoy”. Before that they made Gylt, which Alice B (RPS in peace) was charmed by, calling it Alan Wake for kids and a nice intro to the nuances of commercial game design at large. Here’s a longer chunk:

If you want your child to learn that you can move or climb yellow things in games, that enemies often have glowing vulnerable spots, that you can go back to previously locked off areas to find things, that you should grid search games to find the three MacGuffins you need, that it’s often economical to run past enemies to get to the next area, and that being a bystander to bullying if you’re not participating yourself is still really bad, then gosh, Gylt will do all of that in one.

Suffice it to say that Tequila Works are good folk with many strings to their bow. I hope things pick up from here. Best of luck to the people who’ve lost their jobs.