The day a studio releases a game is typically a day of excitement and celebrations, yet for Visions Of Mana studio Ouka Studios has had almost all of its staff laid off with the expectation of it being closed shortly.

As first reported by Bloomberg NetEase, one of the major Chinese publishers are scaling back their expansion and studios as they back out of their bet on Japanese studios. According to the report almost all of the staff at the studio have been let go with the rest expected to be let go after the full rollout of Visions Of Mana.

This is a stunning turn of events as Visions Of Mana quite literally just released today (or yesterday in China). You never want to see a studio close, but to close a studio right when they release a game is an even worse look. Typically a studio is at the very least around to see how well their game performs.

Ouka Studio was opened in 2020 to much fanfare as it was built with many veteran recruits from Capcom and Bandai Namco among others. It was hired by Square Enix to revive the Mana franchise with Visions Of Mana being the first in the series in 15 years. While it’s far too early to say how it’s doing commercially it fared fairly well with critics.

We at Gamer Social Club hope everyone at the studio can land on their feet quickly.