Mountaintop Closes its Doors Just Six Months After Spectre Divide Launch
The CEO announces the studio is “out of resources to maintain the game” and “will close operations at the end of this week”
The developers behind Spectre Divide, Mountaintop Studios, are shutting down just six months after their launch.
In a blog post, CEO Nate Mitchell informed players that the free-to-play shooter “hasn’t reached the level of success [it] required to sustain the game and keep Mountaintop operational.”
Currently, it is uncertain how many individuals were affected by the closure, but LinkedIn indicates the company hires between 51-200 people.
“We were hopeful about the first week. We’ve seen ~400,000 players engage, with a peak of ~10,000 simultaneous players across all platforms. However, as time progressed, we didn’t observe enough active players and incoming revenue to cover the daily expenses of Spectre and the studio,” Mitchell clarified. “Since the PC launch, we extended our last funds as far as possible, but at this stage, we are out of resources to support the game. This indicates that Mountaintop will be shutting down by the end of this week.
“We explored every possible option to continue, including seeking a publisher, additional funding, and/or an acquisition. In the end, we weren’t able to make it work. The industry is facing significant challenges right now.”
Mitchell stated the team is halting any new purchases and reimbursing any money spent since Season 1 to players and plans to take the game offline “within the next 30 days.”
“This has always been a passion project for us, born out of love for this genre. An indie team of extraordinarily talented individuals who joined forces from around the globe to create a game we believed in.
“We aimed to deliver something fresh and innovative in a crowded market that would bring friends together for unforgettable experiences,” Mitchell concluded. “We reinvented the format, developed a unique art style and universe, and collaborated with some of our heroes. All of us recognized from the start that the odds were against us, but that’s what we committed to. It was never a guaranteed success. We proceeded anyway.”
In the first two months of 2025 alone, 1200 developers have lost their jobs, with layoffs and closures at Freejam, Splash Damage, Piranha Games, Jar of Sparks, Ubisoft, ProbablyMonsters, Iron Galaxy, Sumo Group, Liquid Sword, NetEase Games, Toast Interactive, Night School Studio, and – most recently – Callisto Protocol studio