UPDATED: Gumi closes Canadian office after 18 months

UPDATE: A representative for Gumi has informed Develop that, as well as closing its Vancouver offices, the developer has also stopped its operations in Sweden and Germany, and shut down further studios in Austin and Hong Kong, eliminating much of its Western presence. Gumi maintains outlets in Japan, China, France, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines and San Francisco.

Gumi’s Vancouver branch has been shut down, less than two years after it was opened.

The Japanese mobile studio behind Brave Frontier originally set up shop in the Canadian city in November 2014, saying it would help it to boost its output in North America and the West.

"Vancouver has an amazing amount of talent spread across a wide variety of mobile and console game development companies, so for me that’s one of the key reasons we chose to open a studio here as part of Gumi’s expansion into Canada,” executive producer and studio head Chris Rowe told Develop at the time.

“There were a few notable setbacks for the console sector of the industry here in Vancouver over the last few years, but I think the rise of mobile and the resurgence of indies came at just the right time for developers to capitalise on those setbacks.”

Rowe added that he hoped to employ around 25 staff by the time the studio’s first title entered production.

However, as of its closure, the studio was yet to release a game.