Earlier this year, Swedish developer Liquid Swords released Samson, a GTA-like open world that beats them to manage debts, drive tough but battered cars, and save your sister. It was not very well received, including by us, mainly because it was quite broken. Although subsequent patches have sought to address these issues, it doesn’t seem to be enough as the developer has gone out of business.
As reported by the Swedish media Break it (via Game Chat), on October 12, the Stockholm District Court issued a bankruptcy order against the developer. According to Breakit, nearly 30 employees are affected, with the Swedish state stepping in to cover all unpaid salaries. It appears that the staff went without pay for at least two months, an obviously long period without pay, and that they themselves filed a petition to declare the company bankrupt. Breakit also said the bankruptcy administrator is hopeful of finding a buyer.
Liquid Swords has been around since 2020, led by former Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg; you will know this studio as being behind the Just Cause series. Samson is Liquid Swords’ first and only game, and if all goes wrong, potentially the last. The game received an update just this monthbringing adjustments to combat responsiveness and a series of fixes, so at least given that the developers have gone unpaid for a long period of time, they are certainly still somewhat committed to this project. It shouldn’t have been easy getting him out in the first place, though, considering half the team was fired halfway through development.
Julian and Mark shared their verdict on Samson upon release, with the latter stating: “One of the things, besides scale, that sets Samson apart from its inevitable pre-release comparisons – like GTA and Sleeping Dogs – is the high stakes that its daily cycle of debt repayment puts on every job.” The problem is that bugs that cause key NPCs not to be summoned or missions to randomly fail fundamentally undermine these stakes by causing you to fail tasks due to technical issues that aren’t your fault.
