Liquid Swords, the Swedish studio behind the open-world brawler Samson, has been declared bankrupt. According to Rock Paper Shotgun, which cites Swedish outlet Breakit (via Gametalk), the Stockholm District Court issued a bankruptcy order against the developer on October 12.
Breakit reports that almost 30 employees are affected and that the Swedish state will cover all unpaid wages. Staff had reportedly gone without pay for at least two months, and it was the employees themselves who petitioned for the company’s bankruptcy. Breakit also reports that the administrator handling the case is hopeful that a buyer can be found.
Samson launched earlier this year. It is an open-world beat ’em up in which the player character pays off debt, drives worn-out cars and tries to save his sister. Rock Paper Shotgun notes that the game had a poor reception, largely because of technical problems at launch. Later patches tried to fix those issues, and the studio released another update this month that adjusted combat responsiveness and fixed a range of bugs, even though staff were reportedly going unpaid at the time.
Liquid Swords was founded in 2020 and is led by Christofer Sundberg, a co-founder of Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios. Samson is the studio’s first and only game. According to Rock Paper Shotgun, about half of the team was laid off partway through development.
Liquid Swords had not commented publicly on the bankruptcy in the source material.
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