Midsummer Studios’ player-driven life sim “Burbank” cancelled following closure

Back in 2024, Jake Solomon, former creative director and lead designer at Firaxis for over 2 decades, had worked on games like XCOM 2 and Marvel’s Midnight Suns before he decided to venture out to build his own studio. He teamed up with another former Firaxis vet, Will Miller, who’d worked on games like Civilization: Beyond Earth and Midnight Suns, Ryan Meier, the son of Civilization creator Sid Meier, to found Midsummer Studios and start work on a next-gen “Sims-like” game. 

The unnamed title at the time was pitched as a next-generation Life-simulator that focuses on player-driven stories. “The best stories in games are written by the players,” Solomon stated. “At Midsummer, we’re making a life sim focused on the drama of modern life, where our players will write meaningful stories just by playing, and then share those stories with the world.”

To achieve this dream, the studio had raised $6 million in funding from investors, including Transcend Fund, Tirta Ventures, Betaworks Ventures, 1Up Ventures, F4 Fund, Krafton, and Day Zero Productions. The initial aim, after securing funding, was to sustainably grow the studio while prioritizing team morale by offering benefits such as shared equity in the company and unlimited paid time off. This made it a rather unique and risky venture, but the studio did seem to get off to a good start, especially with the funding it secured; however, a year later, things seemed to have changed for the worse. 

On the 19th of February, Solomon announced the studio's closure and the end of their ambitious project. In a post on X, he shared a final, heartfelt message and a video that would be the game's first and final public showing. “We built a studio, we made a game, and I'm really proud of both. Before we close the doors at Midsummer Studios, I'd like to share a glimpse of Burbank, the game we poured our hearts into,” he said. 

The post gave no reason for the closure, nor has there been any indication that anything went awry at the studio, leaving gamers to speculate about what was happening behind closed doors, with some suspecting the game’s use of AI. Burbank would use LLM models to interact with players and respond to their communications in real time. 

Fans of the devs and the project will have to wait for more official sources to figure out what is to become of the game and the developers who started it.