Twisted Pixel, the studio responsible for games including ‘Splosion Man and Lococycle, has parted ways from Microsoft, which until recently owned the Texas based studio.
The now-independent studio was acquired by Microsoft back in 2011, but studio co-founder Josh Bear recently revealed that the studio had been talking with Microsoft for a while about potentially reverting back to being independent, “if the timing made sense for us”.
Bill Muehl, executive producer at Twisted Pixel, recently explained to IGN that the transition away from Microsoft ownership had been in the works “for a few months”. He also added that Twisted Pixel will “continue its strong partnership with Microsoft” but is also looking forward to “new relationships and platforms”.
Further details about the split between the studio and Microsoft were not made available at the time of writing, and the split could have potentially taken place for a variety of reasons. There’s always the financial matter to contend with in the games industry, and it could simply be that Twisted Pixel were not operating in a financially successful way under Microsoft. However all this is still just speculation.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer said of Twisted Pixel last year that the studio was currently working on an unannounced game that is “very different from anything they’ve done before”. The game itself has still not been publicly revealed, and it is unclear whether the split between Twisted Pixel and Microsoft will impact the release of this game.