Remember Striden, the game with the radioactive attack bears and moose artillery? It charmed both PC Gamer editor Tyler Wilde and myself when we saw it in 2024 with its amusingly odd mash-up of Rust, Stalker, and extremely dangerous wildlife. But it wasn’t able to draw in a critical mass of players, and less than a year after its early access launch, developer 5 Fortress says it’s ending development, closing the game servers, and laying off all employees.
5 Fortress laid out a familiar tale in its farewell message, saying it saw trouble ahead shortly after the early access launch in July 2025. “Several major publishers” had expressed interest in Striden but were put off by low player numbers—but without publisher support for funding and marketing it had no real shot at boosting player counts. “A Catch-22 situation,” the studio said, that hobbled its efforts to win back players.
Making matters worse, 5 Fortress said a significant portion of its money went toward addressing unforeseen problems, including cheaters and abusive players, and a cyberattack against the studio that’s still being investigated by police. “Large portions of our budget and resources were spent restoring everything and building new security for both our studio and the game—resources that should have gone toward an achievement system and more content / bug fixes to retain players.”
The studio says it crunched hard to come up with new game modes requiring few players, including a survival mode that can be played solo, but ultimately it didn’t pay off. “Now we are here,” the studio wrote. “All staff at 5-Fortress have been laid off, and we are forced to shut down both our development and our dream with Striden.
“I understand that many of you will be very disappointed in us, but we truly tried everything we could to save Striden. Thank you for everything, it hurts so much to say goodbye for now.”
It’s a sad outcome for a game I really hoped would have the juice, but not entirely surprising. It’s difficult to launch a successful online shooter at the best of times, and the games industry is in an incredibly precarious state right now, wracked by a multi-year contraction that’s resulted in tens of thousands of layoffs and dozens of studio closures. It’s always been true that early stumbles can doom a game, but it’s never been more true than it is right now.
The Striden servers will remain online until the end of April.
