Raw Power Games, the Copenhagen studio building the medieval sandbox RPG Chronicles: Medieval, announced on October 30 that its backing has disappeared and the studio is at risk of closing. In a letter posted to X, the team wrote: “Due to circumstances outside our control, the necessary funding behind Raw Power Games is no longer in place. Without it we can’t keep building Chronicles: Medieval, and right now the studio is at real risk of closing.” The studio did not name its funder or say why the money stopped.
The letter opens with “This is the hardest message we have ever had to write to you,” and it describes the timing as the cruelest part: “What makes it hurt is how close we are. Early Access is within reach.” The team says “real talks are taking place with everyone who might help us find a way forward,” and it offers no guarantee: “We can’t promise you a happy ending. What we can promise is that we will be honest with you the whole way through, whether the news is good or bad, and that you will hear it from us first.” It asks fans to keep the game on their wishlists and ends with “we’re not going down without a fight!”
Raw Power unveiled Chronicles: Medieval at Summer Game Fest on June 6, 2025, with a trailer narrated by Tom Hardy. The studio describes itself as a company of industry veterans, with more than 100 developers working in Copenhagen and remotely and credits on The Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto and Assassin’s Creed. Community manager Clemens Koch told Wccftech, “We started in 2022, so some time ago.” The studio’s FAQ page calls it “a fully funded studio founded in 2022.”
The game is a sandbox RPG set during the Hundred Years’ War. Players can fight as a soldier or command armies in real-time battles, with England, France and the Holy Roman Empire as playable factions. The studio is aiming for battles of up to 1,000 soldiers per side, with five morale states per unit, so troops can rout or desert. It runs on Unreal Engine 5 and a proprietary engine layer the studio calls Asgard. The developers have named Crusader Kings 3, Mount & Blade and Battle Brothers as inspirations, and senior game designer Andrzej Zawadzki told Inverse, “Modding is a crucial part of the entire package.”
The schedule has already moved. The studio promised Early Access in 2026 at its announcement and again at Summer Game Fest this year, and Koch said the team planned to stay in Early Access “for a year.” The Steam page now lists a 2027 release and says Early Access should last “roughly a year.”
That timeline shows why the funding loss is so dangerous for a studio this size. Valve launched Steam Early Access in 2013 so small teams could sell an unfinished game to pay for the rest of it. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, the game Raw Power’s fans most often compare this one to, entered Early Access in March 2020 and reached version 1.0 in October 2022. A team of 100 carries payroll for months before a single copy sells, and Raw Power needed its backer to cover that gap until Early Access began.
The industry around it is shrinking. The ASGC Games Industry Layoffs Tracker, run by Amir Satvat, counted 10,977 confirmed job losses through mid-October, above the 9,197 recorded for all of 2025, along with 35 studio closures. Bloomberg reports that EA is closing BioWare and cancelling the next Mass Effect. Sucker Punch cut roughly two dozen jobs, and Microsoft plans about 3,200 Xbox cuts through June 2027. Raw Power’s letter comes from a studio that never shipped a game, which means it has no revenue history to show a new investor.
A studio with veteran developers, a Tom Hardy trailer and a game within reach of Early Access could not keep its funding. What would a publisher or investor need to see before it writes the check?