Less than six months after the release of the survival horror shooter Crisol: Theater of Idols, developer Vermila Studios appears to be in trouble. The studio has not officially closed, as one former employee had claimed, but CEO David Carrasco confirmed that employees have been let go and that a full shutdown “is a feasible possibility.”
Vermila’s reported closure was initially shared on X by game designer Raúl Pernía Alejandro, who said (via auto-translation) that “Vermila Studios has initiated a redundancy procedure that has ultimately led to the studio’s closure and the departure of the entire team.” Several hours after that message was posted, however, it was deleted and replaced with one stating that while the “entire team” has left, “for now the company remains active.” Alejandro acknowledged the mistake in a subsequent apology.
Still, it was clear that layoffs had taken place, as numerous employees on X and LinkedIn, some of them in senior positions and with long tenures and Vermila, reported that they’d been let go on July 22.
Carrasco subsequently confirmed the cuts in a statement provided to Game Developer, saying that Vermila had not closed but that its future was uncertain.
“Unfortunately, due to financial reasons, we’ve had to dispense with the staff at Vermila Studios,” Carrasco told the site. “We’re going to try to pull through for the time being without shutting down, but the circumstances are quite difficult and it is a feasible possibility in the upcoming months.”
Crisol wasn’t a huge hit by any measure, but it was a reasonably well-received game, if somewhat niche. It’s eurojank in all the right ways: more weird than horror, rife with underdeveloped ideas, a silly story, and bad voice acting, but also powerfully atmospheric and unexpectedly compelling.
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I don’t even think of it as survival horror, really—it’s just an FPS with some weird mechanics. But I liked it well enough to play from start to finish, and even though I ran into various frustrations and annoyances along the way, I never seriously considered quitting.
As we’ve noted previously, though, making a good game is no guarantee of a secure future in the videogame industry—nor is making one that’s a big hit. That likely comes as little consolation to former Vermila employees.
