It’s a sad time for the Australian game development scene, as it was revealed that Torus Games, a Melbournian game development studio, was “effectively shuttered” following the loss of eight jobs over the weekend. This news was broken by Jack Ryan on his X (formerly known as Twitter) profile.
Melbourne's Torus Games has effectively shuttered after nearly 30 years. Eight employees have been laid off.
Bill McIntosh, founder/owner, said that Torus had a number of projects in discussion over the past year — but no one keen to move forward in development. pic.twitter.com/kWmVct1uWR
— jack ryan 💀 (@dctrjack) March 1, 2024
Torus Games has been around since 1994 and, over those almost thirty years, had a hand in over 140 notable releases. Titles such as World War Z, DOOM II, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and most recently, LEGO 2K Drive, all had some kind of assistance from Torus. It is worth noting that, at least for now, Torus Games will still “continue as a business for the time being”, though it will only operate with Founder/Owner, Bill McIntosh, running things by himself. All game development, however, has ceased.
Alongside the aforementioned titles, Torus Games had worked with some of gaming’s biggest brands, like Ubisoft, The Pokémon Company, Bandai Namco, and Activision. The loss of such an important studio in Australian game development will no doubt be felt by many of those in the industry.
