Lamplighter devs Harebrained "part ways" with Paradox as publisher decides against new project in the same genre

rockpapershotgun.com:

Shadowrun and Battletech studio Harebrained Schemes have "parted ways" with Paradox Interactive - or what's left of the company have, at least. Paradox have announced that they're cutting Harebrained loose to pursue publishing opportunities elsewhere following dismal sales of the studio's latest release, swaggering 1930s-set Indiana XCOMalike The Lamplighters League. Paradox will keep ownership of The Lamplighters League and other games developed by Harebrained, though the Crusader Kings publisher have no plans for a project or sequel in the same genre.

We were rather looking forward to The Lamplighters League for a time. Previewing the squad-based period battler in March, Katharine described it as a thrilling blend that "pilfers from the finest strategy games around". Sin found the final version to be a muddle, however: in our The Lamplighters League review, she summarised the game as "a strong turn-based foundation and colourful setting held back by grind, blind chance, and a need for efficiency over tactical variety". And players were similarly mixed: Paradox wrote off the project as a $23 million flop a mere week after launch. I haven't yet had time to try it, myself, but I did enjoy Harebrained's old Shadowrun games and had a lot of fun failing to keep my robots cool in Battletech.

Paradox appear to have scented defeat early on - the company laid off a "significant" proportion of Harebrained's staff this summer, as the game entered its final phase of development, making the whole thing feel rather like a fait accompli, though this may have just been the sadly routine business of scaling down as projects near completion.

Harebrained Schemes - which was founded in 2011, and flogged to Paradox in 2018 - will