Heart Machine lays off nearly everyone after publisher pulls funding for unannounced game

Heart Machine, the studio behind Hyper Light Drifter, Solar Ash, and Possessor(s), has laid off nearly its entire staff after an unnamed publisher pulled funding for an unannounced project. Studio founder Alx Preston broke the news on LinkedIn on September 16, 2026.

Preston's post was direct: "We had been working on an unannounced title, funded by a publisher. This week, they decided to no longer move forward with it. Without this key income for the studio, any other immediate prospects or other funds, nearly everyone at the studio had to be laid off. It's devastating." He confirmed that all affected staff will receive support including help with job placement, and asked anyone aware of open roles to reach out. Heart Machine as a legal entity still exists, but Preston was candid about the uncertainty: "I'm not sure yet what's next for Heart Machine to survive."

The timing is brutal. Heart Machine's recent run has been rough — Hyper Light Breaker launched into early access in 2025, struggled to capture what made the original special, and had its development shut down within the year alongside an earlier round of layoffs. Possessor(s), a side-scrolling action game, shipped just weeks after those cuts and landed to mixed-to-mostly-positive reviews on Steam, but without much commercial traction. The cancelled project would have been the studio's fifth game overall. Heart Machine made its name with Hyper Light Drifter in 2016, a critically acclaimed 2D action game that became a cult classic, but the studio has been fighting uphill ever since Solar Ash in 2022 underperformed.

The layoffs land in an already grim stretch for the industry — Double Fine cut around 25% of its staff in late July after going independent following Xbox's restructuring, and Build a Rocket Boy also announced layoffs around the same time. For Heart Machine, the path forward is genuinely unclear. Preston says the remaining team will keep pushing, but with nearly everyone gone and no funded project in sight, the studio's survival is an open question.