{"id":768549,"date":"2026-09-12T17:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T17:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/768549\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T17:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T17:50:09","slug":"moss-studio-polyarc-shuts-down-becoming-the-latest-casualty-of-a-brutal-year-for-vr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/768549\/","title":{"rendered":"Moss studio Polyarc shuts down, becoming the latest casualty of a brutal year for VR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Polyarc, the Seattle studio behind the acclaimed VR series Moss, has closed its doors after almost 12 years.<\/p>\n<p>The news came via a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/polyarc-games_polyarc-reverse-recruiting-tracker-activity-7504247061073002496-_5y2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LinkedIn<\/a> post from the studio&#8217;s official account.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After nearly 12 years riding the joyous rollercoaster of emotions that is making video games, our time together has come to an end,&#8221; the post reads. &#8220;As we wind down active development, we are saying our farewells to each other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The trailer for Moss: The Forgotten Relic, Polyarc&#8217;s final release.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xZ2DvZLIjjA\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Working together over all of these years has been an honour,&#8221; the post continued. &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The post included a reverse recruiting spreadsheet with contact details for affected staff, urging other studios to reach out. According to the studio&#8217;s own LinkedIn data, Polyarc employed between 11-50 people and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/vr-developer-polyarc-games-facing-layoffs-unspecified-number-of-employees-affected\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">had already gone through a round of layoffs back in March<\/a>, after the studio failed to secure funding for a since-cancelled project.<\/p>\n<p>Its final release was Moss: The Forgotten Relic, a July launch that brought both mainline Moss games to flatscreen for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>Polyarc&#8217;s closure is the latest in a grim run for VR development this year. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/meta-reportedly-set-to-cut-10-of-staff-in-reality-labs-metaverse-arm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Meta kicked off 2026 by cutting around 1,500 jobs from its Reality Labs division<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/meta-closes-three-vr-studios-following-10-cut-to-reality-labs-metaverse-division\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shutting three of its own studios outright<\/a>, Armature, Sanzaru, and Twisted Pixel, while gutting Camouflaj down to a skeleton crew &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/meta-reportedly-lays-off-over-100-employees-across-arvr-hardware-and-games-division\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">all of which came on top of cuts in early 2025<\/a>, too. Meta has also since <a href=\"https:\/\/gagadget.com\/en\/559746-meta-has-officially-stopped-selling-the-meta-quest-pro-headset\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pulled its commercial Quest headsets from sale<\/a>, redirecting its investment toward AI and smart glasses instead. Elsewhere, nDreams laid off 78 staff and closed two studios in March.<\/p>\n<p>Polyarc announced big plans just a few years ago, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/moss-developer-polyarc-working-on-unnamed-multiplayer-vr-project\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a VR competitive multiplayer game the studio had been wanting to develop since its inception in 2015<\/a>. Its back catalogue, including both Moss games and The Forgotten Relic, remains available to buy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Polyarc, the Seattle studio behind the acclaimed VR series Moss, has closed its doors after almost 12 years.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-768549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}