Despite the highly-publicized development of a new title, the studio looks like they are done.
In a stunning move, developer United Front Games appears to be in the process of shutting down their operations.
The news just started leaking recently across websites and social media and has left many scrambling for answers. United Front is best known for their work on the 2012 cult classic Sleeping Dogs, but they've been heavily promoting the Early Access multiplayer title SMASH+GRAB which debuted on Steam Early Access not too long ago. The game even recently enjoyed a free weekend of play that helped the title attract a fair amount of positive publicity.
Now, however, you are no longer able to even download the title. Its Steam page is still up, but the game's download button has been removed.
What exactly happened to the studio is going to remain a mystery for the immediate future. The initial report seems to have surfaced on NeoGAF and it wasn't until one of the studio's producers sent out the following tweet that we received any semi-official confirmation of the closure:
A quick look at the studio's most recent releases reveals that they've gone a few years without a major hit (even Sleeping Dogs wasn't a tremendous financial success upon its initial release), but the fact that the company was just starting to promote SMASH+GRAB so fiercely combined with their agreement to have Nexon publish the game led few to suspect there was any trouble brewing whatsoever. It is possible that the quiet cancellation of their Sleeping Dogs spin-off (the online multiplayer Triad Wars) earlier this year should have been interpreted as the first warning sign.
We wish everyone that was affected by this closure good luck in the future and hope to update you with more details regarding this decision as they become available.