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Fantasy Flight Interactive is shutting down in February 2020

As Fantasy Flight experiences layoffs, its gaming studio fell on the chopping block. It looks like Fantasy Flight Interactive will be closed by next month.

TJ Denzer

January 8, 2020 9:30 AM

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In 2017, Fantasy Flight sought to take its development strategy in a branching direction where the company would focus both on the boardgames it had become famous for, as well as exploring video game development and adaptations of existing products. Unfortunately, things have not panned out well for the latter as Fantasy Flight has announced that its video game studio, Fantasy Flight Interactive, is shutting down and laying off its employees by February 2020.

The news came from Studio Head Tim Gerritsen via his LinkedIn account, as originally reported by Gamasutra.

“It’s with great sadness that I have to report that the decision has been made to close Fantasy Flight Interactive next month,” Gerritsen wrote. “I’m proud of the team and the game we’ve dedicated ourselves to for the past few years. It’s a been an amazing journey with even more amazing people. I’m going to do my best to get my team placed in new positions. I have programmers, designers, artists, QA staff and a producer to get placed in new roles and will do my best to do so quickly. Additionally, I’m now open to new opportunities myself since I will also be out of a job.”

If Fantasy Flight Interactive doesn’t ring too much of a bell, it’s because the studio hasn’t exactly put out a lot of projects in its short, two-year existence. The sole released project of the studio was an adaptation of Fantasy Flight’s The Lord of the Rings Living Card Game into a video game format, and while we found it promising, Fantasy Flight Interactive has been rather quiet besides. Gamasutra also reported that further people had been let go from the Fantasy Flight company, and that the customer service department and tabletop RPG department were apparently in peril as well.

It’s an unfortunate end to a group that had such a stellar library of games to work with. Here’s hoping those affected by the layoffs find their way elsewhere in board and video games in 2020.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.