Heart Machine Lays Off Nearly All Staff After Publisher Cancels Unannounced Title
A studio that lost staff in 2024 and 2025 now loses the funding behind its next project, leaving its survival dependent on a path Preston says he has not found.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
Heart Machine announced on September 17 that it will lay off nearly all of its staff. Founder Alx Preston said on LinkedIn that a publisher cancelled an unannounced project, removing the studio's main source of funding. Preston said the studio will offer job placement support, and that he does not yet know how Heart Machine will survive.
The cancelled project was unannounced and its publisher has not been disclosed. Heart Machine had already cut staff in November 2024, again in October 2025 when it announced the gradual end of Hyper Light Breaker development, and once more before the release of Possessor(s). Preston wrote that navigating an industry that keeps changing is extremely difficult, and that as long as he is here he will keep trying to find a way forward. The studio's 2016 release Hyper Light Drifter holds a Very Positive rating on Steam.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.