Today brings news few of us wanted: Gentlymad Studios, the Wiesbaden-based team behind Endzone, Pizza Connection 3, In Between and more, is shutting its doors at the end of September 2025. Stefan Marcinek, CEO & Founder of Assemble Entertainment, announced the closure with a heartfelt message:
“For more than ten years, this team has been more than just a development studio. They’ve been friends, collaborators, and dreamers. From In Between to Pizza Connection 3 and the Endzone series, they put heart, humor, and incredible talent into everything they made.”
For over a decade, Gentlymad carved out a reputation as a studio unafraid to tackle unusual genres. Their early titles such as In Between and Pizza Connection 3 showed both creativity and a playful sense of humour. Yet it was with Endzone: A World Apart that the team achieved its biggest success. By mid-2021 the game had sold more than 300,000 copies and became Assemble’s biggest hit to date. Its mix of city-building, survival mechanics and a haunting post-apocalyptic setting made it a standout in an increasingly crowded genre. While the first Endzone had its share of bugs and criticisms, it was widely admired for its atmosphere and depth, with many players praising the way it captured both the harshness and hope of rebuilding after catastrophe.
The story of Endzone 2 was more complicated. The game launched into Early Access in August 2024 with high ambitions, expanding on the systems of its predecessor with improved visuals, new mechanics like trade routes and expeditions, and a stronger late-game loop. Yet the reception was mixed. Marcinek himself admitted: “Endzone 2 had a journey as challenging as the world it’s set in. The Early Access launch brought unexpected difficulties: low sales, mixed reviews, and some very hard conversations.”
But the team didn’t give up. As Stephan Wirth put it, “When criticism rolled in, we didn’t retreat.” Instead, they kept listening to the community, patching, refining, and improving the game over the course of its Early Access run. Marcinek was proud of that fight: “The team listened, improved, and kept going right until the end. I’ll never regret that fight.”
Despite those efforts, the numbers simply didn’t add up. By September 2025, the studio had reached its limit. “In the end, those efforts couldn’t sustain the studio. It’s heartbreaking for the team, the players, and for me personally,” Marcinek said in his farewell.
The Gentlymad team themselves also shared a message to their fans, beginning with:
“Dear survivors, we have some bittersweet news to share: Gentlymad Studios is closing down. This isn’t an easy message to write, but we wanted you to hear it directly from us. Since founding the studio in 2014, we’ve been lucky enough to create games like In Between, Pizza Connection 3, and of course Endzone – A World Apart. With Endzone 2, we dreamed even bigger. It didn’t start where we hoped, but thanks to your feedback and support, we worked tirelessly through Early Access to bring it to a place we can truly be proud of.”
That feeling being on the right path makes the closure even harder. The team admitted, “Over the past months, we felt we were at a tipping point – more and more players were beginning to see the vision we had for the game. Not being able to carry it further is heartbreaking for us, but we’re deeply proud of how far it has come.” And in a touching note to their players, they concluded: “Through all the ups and downs, it was you, our players, who made this journey so meaningful. Every comment, every idea, every survival story you shared kept us going. You weren’t just our audience – you were part of the team.”
As someone who has quite enjoyed Endzone, this news is especially sad. The first game stood out for me because it wasn’t just another survival builder, it balanced bleakness of a postapocalyptic world with hope of rebuilding a flourishing new civilization. Every storm, every radiation hotspot, every carefully built water supply mattered. It was brutal but rewarding, and above all, it felt alive. Seeing the studio try so hard to grow that vision in Endzone 2, responding to players and fighting for the game, only to run out of time and resources, is heartbreaking. It’s a reminder of how fragile even talented and passionate studios can be in today’s gaming industry.
Support for Endzone 2 will almost certainly taper off after the studio closes. Patches and new content are unlikely, leaving the game in the state the developers managed to bring it to before the end. But the legacy of Gentlymad will live on. Endzone: A World Apart remains a defining survival city-builder of its time, and Endzone 2 will stand as a testament to their ambition. These are skilled people who will hopefully find new homes in other studios or start fresh projects of their own. The industry is better for their contributions, and it will need them again.
I will conclude with the finishing words of the Gentlymad team themselves:
“From the bottom of our hearts: thank you for believing in us, for playing our games, and for helping shape them into what they became. Though Gentlymad Studios is coming to an end, the worlds we built together will live on through you.”
