Echo developer Ultra Ultra has shut down
"We are grateful to have had the chance to crystallize something truly from the heart."
Ultra Ultra, the developer behind well-received stealth-action sci-fi game Echo, has announced its closure.
The Copenhagen-based studio, which was formed by several former members of Hitman developer IO Interactive, broke the news on Twitter, writing that, "We're terribly sad to report that Ultra Ultra has ceased to exist." Although the developer did not elaborate on the reasons for its closure, it noted that Echo, its first and only title, would remain for sale in stores.
Echo, which released for PC and PS4 in 2017, offered a stylish, fascinating take on the stealth-action genre, employing a distinctive system which pitted players against computer-controlled versions of themselves. Every five minutes, the murderous AI in charge of Echo's strikingly baroque complex, known as The Palace, would power the world down and reboot, teaching the clones all your recent moves so they could be used against you.
Eurogamer's Christian Donlan had plenty of praise for Echo, calling it, "a science fiction game that makes you hate yourself by throwing you into a world that hates you even more. It feels like the ultimate conclusion to Hitman, in many ways - the deadly payoff for all that guilty pleasure."
In fact, Echo's distinctive sense of style and unique premise even managed to capture the attention of Hollywood, with Fenix Studios announcing earlier this year that it had optioned the rights to produce a movie based on game. This will still go ahead despite Ultra Ultra's closure, the developer revealed in a follow-up Tweet.
In its announcement post, the studio told followers that it was "grateful to have had the chance to crystallize something truly from the heart".