Surgent Studios puts staff on hiatus while searching for a publisher

Surgent Studios, the developer behind indie title Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, has made its entire game development staff redundancy notice while it searches for a publisher for the next game, the studio announced today.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Surgent Studio stated that they have not yet been able to find a partner for their next game in development. The game, which is not announced as a successor to ZAU but is stated to carry on its design lineage, cannot continue on without money to pay the staff. While a prototype has been created, no greenlight has been given yet.

Earlier this year, Surgent Studios had to lay off just over a dozen developers after ZAU did not perform up to expectations. The studio, founded by Assassin’s Creed and House of the Dragon actor Abubakar Salim, sought to make culturally sensitive action games. Critically, at least, ZAU accomplished that with above-average critical scores.