Twelve Tenths released MIO: Memories in Orbit towards the beginning of this year. The atmospheric adventure mixes beautiful sci-fi art with puzzles and action platform combat. It was an early 2026 banger and a unique flavor of Metroidvania. Months later, the studio that made it is already closing its doors.
This is what a new report from French media reveals. exit Le Figaro, which describes a panic among the country’s game developers as teams across the gaming industry fight back. Douze Dixiémes’ first game was the short puzzle adventure 2020 A suspicious part of me. The indie team used their expertise in animation and cutscenes to create stunning visuals that unfolded as players explored.
MIO: Memories in Orbit was in the same mold, but much more ambitious. The 2.5D side-scroller puts players in the shoes of the titular MIO, a robot exploring an abandoned colony ship whose only inhabitants appear to be other robots. Think of a mashup of Hollow Knight And Gray. The game debuted in the 80s on Metacritic and garnered nearly 2,000 reviews on Steam with a very positive rating.
Despite the initial buzz, MIO: Memories in Orbit never really went broke as an indie darling of the year or one of those early indie GOTY contenders. Focus Entertainment would retain publishing rights to the game, even if the team behind it could never make the follow-up it deserves. This is the last example kind of hyper-competitive landscape against games that are great but not great enough and that sucks.
Quantic Dream, Don’t Nod and Nacon Studios are also facing financial difficulties. With venture capital and Chinese technology companies I am now retiring from the gameit’s not clear who is left to bail out even the industry’s best-known teams.
