Astragon shuts Astragon Development, cutting 40-plus staff

Astragon Entertainment is closing Astragon Development, the German studio formerly known as Independent Arts Software, with more than 40 employees affected. That headcount figure, first reported by GamesMarket, makes this one of the sharper single-studio cuts in the German simulation market this year.

The publisher is now seeking what it calls "socially responsible solutions" for the affected staff. GamesMarket framed the closure as part of a strategic realignment of the business.

What is the studio losing?

Plenty of history. Holger Kuchling founded Independent Arts in Hamm in 1990, and the team worked on more than 250 games across three decades. Its specialty was ports and co-development for publishers including Kalypso Media, Daedalic Entertainment and Wild River Games — the unglamorous contract work that keeps mid-sized European releases shipping on every platform.

The corporate chain matters here. Team17, since renamed Everplay Group, acquired Astragon in 2022. Astragon then bought Independent Arts Software in April 2023 for up to $3.9 million (€3.5m), with a clear plan: bring development of its working simulation games in-house and spread the portfolio across more platforms.

That plan lasted roughly two and a half years. Kuchling left the company in February 2025, and the studio was renamed Astragon Development three months later. Now it's gone entirely.

What does this change for Astragon's business?

The closure continues a pattern of retreat. In January, the publisher pulled out of physical distribution completely to refocus on publishing. Killing an internal studio two years after paying millions to acquire it suggests the in-house development bet, at least in this form, hasn't paid off.

The timing points to one likely trigger. Astragon fully released Seafarer: The Ship Sim at the end of September. The game carried serious public backing — more than $2 million (€1.8m) in German federal funding — yet GamesMarket reported its 1.0 launch drew far fewer players than its early access debut. Steam user reviews sit at "Mixed." Astragon has said it will continue updating the game for now, so the title isn't dead, but its trajectory clearly didn't justify an internal dev operation built partly around it.

What does this change for studios and staff?

For the 40-plus employees in Hamm, it's a job hunt in a regional games industry that has absorbed repeated cutbacks. For Everplay Group, the parent company, it means writing off most of that $3.9 million acquisition and shrinking Astragon back toward a pure publishing footprint.

For other German porting and co-dev shops, the loss of Independent Arts removes a three-decade veteran competitor — and a cautionary tale. An acquisition pitched as platform expansion has ended in closure, with the founder already gone since February.

Watch how Everplay frames Astragon's role in its next financial update. Whether Seafarer keeps its update cadence past the holiday quarter will signal how committed the publisher remains to internally developed simulation titles at all.