dear esther

The Chinese Room, a British studio best known for first-person adventure games like Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Dear Esther, announced today that it has laid off its staff and that it’s “going dark” for the next few months. Creative director Dan Pinchbeck wrote an extensive blog post that announces the news, explaining that this temporary closure was “in the cards since earlier this year.” Pinchbeck says that this decision has to do with financial pressures following a health scare, and a pause is needed to recharge. He writes, “To cut a long story short, the situation – between financial pressures, trying to keep the lights on for the employed team, the stress of end-of-development, health issues – just wasn’t a tenable thing anymore. It w...