Polyarc is no more.
The company announced on Friday 11 September, without a stated reason.
"Today is the end of an era for Polyarc. After nearly 12 years riding the joyous rollercoaster of emotions that is making video games, our time together has come to an end. As we wind down active development, we are saying our farewells to each other. Working together over all of these years has been an honour. Bringing surprise and delight to those who played our games has been a privilege. Thank you to everyone at Polyarc, our work is now finished."
Twenty-Nine people are fired, including co-founders Chris Alderson, Danny Bulla and CEO Tam Armstrong. The studio published a sheet listing artists, designers, animators and engineers with contact details, urging other studios to hire them.
The year before
March 2026 layoffs downsized the company by roughly two-thirds after Polyarc couldn't secure funding following the cancellation of a major project.
Moss: The Forgotten Relic arrived in July, a flatscreen collection of both games co-developed with Blackbird Interactive for PC, PS5, Xbox and Switch. It reviewed well but was not enough.
Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss, the competitive VR spin-off released in 2025, didn't find an audience.
What they built
Armstrong, Bulla and Alderson founded Polyarc in 2015, all three came from Bungie, where they'd worked on Destiny.
Moss arrived in 2018 and became one of PlayStation VR's defining games, built around guiding a mouse called Quill through levels you could lean into and peer around. It accumulated over 7,000 five-star reviews. Moss: Book II followed in 2022, taking VR/AR Game of the Year at The Game Awards and Game of the Year at the VR Awards.
Funding ran to 3.5 million dollars in 2016 and another 9 million in 2020 for augmented reality work. Publishing director Lincoln Davis described the AR ambition in 2021 as wanting "to be early on with other technical advances and be that pioneer but add that Polyarc flavour."
The wider VR retreat
Meta began pivoting from the metaverse toward AI at the start of this year, closing several of its own VR studios. That retreat made funding new VR projects considerably harder for everyone else.
Camouflaj in Bellevue, behind Batman: Arkham Shadow, took heavy cuts eight months ago after Meta layoffs. Netflix closed Night School and Moonloot. FuturLab cut staff and cancelled projects.
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