One of the biggest VR developers in the business closes a studio: 'The VR market remains a challenging space'
Overview & Key Takeaways
Thief VR publisher Vertigo Games has been a VR-exclusive studio for years, but its most recent release, and its next game, are both non-VR titles.
VR development studio Vertigo Games, whose games include Arizona Sunshine VR, The 7th Guest VR, Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow, and Metro Awakening is closing its studio in Amsterdam.
"The VR market remains a challenging space, and after careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to close Vertigo Studios Amsterdam," CEO Richard Stitselaar said in a message posted on LinkedIn (via GamesIndustry)."This is not a decision we have taken lightly, and I want to acknowledge the impact it has on everyone at Vertigo Studios Amsterdam."
The number of people being put out of work by the shutdown was not disclosed.
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Vertigo Games was acquired by the Embracer Group in 2020, but for once this bad outcome can't be blamed on Embracer. Stitselaar said when the acquisition was announced that "the VR gaming market seems to be on the edge of really taking off," but in fact it has not. The Steam Hardware and Software Survey continues to point to extremely low rates of VR adoption, and the rising cost of hardware is not likely to improve that situation.
There's also no overlooking the fact that Vertigo is hardly alone in its struggles: Facebook parent company Meta closed three VR studios and laid off 10% of its Reality Labs workforce in January, and then two months later announced the end of the VR version of Meta Horizon Worlds.
And while hardware is improving, interest in VR gaming does not seem to be moving with it. When the Vertigo-published Thief VR game was announced in 2025, for instance, PC Gamer's Fraser Brown—not a man to pull punches—called it "a huge slap in the face and kick in the teeth for everyone who has been waiting for more than a decade to return to the City," because it took a foundational PC game series and locked it behind "a gimmick."
(Thief VR was developed by Maze Theory, but published by Vertigo.)
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That's harsh, but I don't disagree, and in fact I had similar feelings (although perhaps not quite as outraged) over Metro Awakening when it was announced in 2024: I love the Metro series, and seeing resources poured into a new game that only a tiny portion of the potential audience could actually play (and to be clear, I'm not part of it) irked me—although at least in that case, the blow was softened by the knowledge that 4A Games was simultaneously working on the next mainline Metro game, recently revealed as Metro 2039.
Metro Awakening Launch Trailer (Official) - YouTube
It's possible that Vertigo has made the same connection: The studio's most recent release, The 7th Guest Remake, is basically a flatscreen do-over of the VR version that launched in 2023, and during the Future Games Show this past weekend it revealed that a non-VR version of Arizona Sunshine is also on the way.
