V1 Interactive, the developer that created the FPS/RTS hybrid game, Disintegration, has announced the studio is closing down.
A tweet from the V1 Interactive account broke the sad news earlier today. Marcus Lehto, the president of the company, chimed in, stating that the company has been upfront with the employees regarding the studio’s closure for months. And that they have been helping the employees on finding new means of employment. That last bit is damned classy of V1 Interactive.
We are sad to inform you that V1 Interactive is officially closing.
We want to thank all the talented people at V1, both past and present, who helped make the last 5 years wonderful.
And a heartfelt thanks to the amazing community that supported us. pic.twitter.com/XX6Sxtc32o— V1 Interactive (@V1Interactive) March 8, 2021
Sadly, 2020 was not a good year for V1 Interactive. The company is in the middle of finishing up its first game, Disintegration, and then COVID-19 became an issue. Forcing the developers to work from home to finish up the game. When the game was finally released, it was met with a mixed reception. I had the pleasure of playing and reviewing the game here, and while the game was rough, it had several things going for it.
I was hoping V1 Interactive would revisit the sore spots and turn the reception of the game around. The Gravcycle was a decent idea, and I wanted to see how they could incorporate it into the game. Such as allowing players to customize it instead of being confined to a limited layout that was forcibly changed depending on the mission you were on.
Then there was the lack of attention when it came to the multiplayer aspect. The game never was popular enjoy and failed to find an online following. This led to V1 Interactive to shutdown the Disintegration online servers down in November 2020.
We have made the difficult decision to remove Disintegration’s multiplayer modes from the game across all platforms. This will be done in phases over the coming months, starting today with the removal of the in-game store, and will conclude on November 17th with the full removal of multiplayer. The single player campaign will remain fully playable moving forward.
From there, you can imagine that the writing was on the wall. While the single-player portion had a decent story, it was a one-and-done thing. Once you beat the main campaign, there was no reason to revisit. It was here that V1 Interactive was hoping that the multiplayer portion would take off.
Now, with the announcement of the studio closing down, Disintegration is done for. Not that this is important, not as much as now the current but soon-to-be former development team can find new jobs elsewhere. Here’s to hoping that everyone at V1 Interactive is able to land on their feet. Thank’s to everyone for giving us Disintegration.
