Samson studio Liquid Swords is bankrupt and up for sale

Liquid Swords, the Stockholm studio founded in 2020 by Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg, has been declared bankrupt. Its only game, the open-world action title Samson: A Tyndalston Story, came out earlier this year. Now the court-appointed receiver is trying to sell the studio and the game, according to a notice from law firm Cirio, whose lawyer Karl Björlin was named receiver.

How it unfolded

Samson's numbers

The receiver's bidding documents offer a rare look at how a mid-sized game performed. As of 14 October, Samson had sold about 151,900 copies across PlayStation, Xbox and Steam, for net revenue of roughly SEK 24.1 million. In 2024, while the game was still in development and the company had no revenue, it posted a loss of about SEK 39.3 million.

For sale are mainly Samson's intellectual property, source code, tools, art, audio and narrative material, along with equipment. There is a catch: many of those assets are pledged to NetEase, so a buyer will need the Chinese publisher to release its security or approve the transfer. The estate says it will try to keep supporting Samson with patches during the bidding period, and it may sell before the deadline.

With the company in bankruptcy, Sweden's state wage guarantee now steps in to cover the employees' unpaid salaries, Swedish outlet Gametalk reports.

Why it matters to players

If you own Samson, nothing changes for now. Whether it gets more updates depends on who buys it. Studio closures are also fuelling the push to protect what players have paid for, as we covered in our piece on the Power to the Players Act, and this week's Total War: Shogun 2 delisting is another reminder that digital games can vanish from stores.