Jukai Studio announced its closure over the holidays, despite launching its horror survival title Stray Souls last October.
In a statement shared to social media on December 22, the developer cited “many reasons” for its decision to shut down, including the closure of its publisher Versus Evil, cyberbullying, poor reception to Stray Souls, and bad sales.
“We did everything in our power to bring the project to completion in the best possible form, but throughout the entire duration we, our publisher staff, other publisher dev teams and our close ones were constantly attacked by a cyber persecutor, and some of you, as our community, were also tormented with unwanted messages and emails,” the developer said.
“We understand that you did not wish to continue to continue actively supporting us for the obvious reasons mentioned above,” it continued.
“The matter is now in the hands of our lawyers, so we cannot speak about it any further, but know that we will not abandon [Stray Souls] despite the studio’s closure.”
Jukai Studio clarified that no staff had been laid off in the process, as it “never functioned as a large corporation”, adding: “Together we decided that each of us will go their separate ways.”
Stray Souls publisher Versus Evil announced its closure on the same day as Jukai Studio, which was founded in 2013 and acquired by TinyBuild in 2021.
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