Just yesterday, we brought you the announcement of the Visions of Mana release on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. Apparently on that same day, the game's developer Ouka Studio was almost fully shut down.
According to the initial reporting by Bloomberg, Ouka Studio's parent company, NetEase, started to layoff developers this past spring. Those cuts ramped up more recently as both NetEase and Tencent Holdings began to cut back on "many of their investments in Japanese studios." The reason is supposed because these Japanese studios have "yielded few hit games" and apparently the "Chinese market staged a comeback." That "comeback" so far being just one title, Black Myth: Wukong.
This week, Bandai Namco announced that they were ending support for Blue Protocol, their anime-themed MMORPG. Tencent announced in 2023 that they would be the publisher of the mobile release of the title. Not only will support for that title end in 2025, but the international release has been canceled.
Tencent said in an emailed statement that it remains committed to its partner studios and developing its business in Japan. NetEase said it had “nothing to announce” when asked about a potential closure of Ouka, and that it was seeing progress at the many Japanese studios it’s invested in.
Visions of Mana was published by Square Enix.
