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A short lived anime action RPG experiment has ended with a full studio closure. After months of uncertainty following an early access launch, the team behind Starlight Re:Volver confirmed it will not continue operations.
Good to Know
Pahdo Labs paused development on Starlight Re:Volver in November, only three months after the game entered early access. The move followed weaker than expected launch performance, despite a demo that performed well during Steam Next Fest.
At that time, the studio laid off half of its staff and said it would reassess direction, promising an update in February. That update has now arrived, confirming the end of the studio rather than a relaunch.
Dan Zou said the project failed to reach the commercial scale required to continue operating:
“Since our last update in November, we’ve been grappling with the reality that Starlight Re:Volver did not achieve the commercial success we needed to sustain Pahdo Labs. We aimed high, spread ourselves too thin, and shipped a game that couldn’t hold a healthy player base.”
Following the halt of Starlight Re:Volver updates, the remaining team shifted focus to a new prototype called Edge of Divinity. The project aimed to demonstrate lessons learned and attract additional investment.
“We believed making a demo of a familiar but new game would be our best shot,” Zou wrote, “as it allowed us to demonstrate lessons learned in game design and market positioning in the quickest and clearest way possible. So, we channeled our efforts into a new prototype for a new game, Edge of Divinity, that we would pitch for additional funding. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to secure that funding.”
The demo for Edge of Divinity is now publicly available on Steam. The game is described as a one to four player peer to peer roguelite set inside a cosmic structure known as the Tower. Design goals included smoother combat, more streamlined progression, and deeper systems than Starlight Re:Volver.
Despite availability, the demo will not progress into a full release following the studio shutdown.
Zou also addressed questions surrounding the reported US$17.5 million raised by the studio. He said most funding went toward developer salaries, art creation, and content production at market rates:
“I want to be transparent that the vast majority of those resources went into market rate developer salaries, art, and content production. A little more than half of that total amount went towards the development of Starlight Re:Volver. The remainder went to past and experimental projects, mostly Halcyon Zero.”
Halcyon Zero served as an early prototype for Starlight Re:Volver, making Edge of Divinity the third attempt by the studio to build a multiplayer anime style action RPG.
The genre remains popular, driven largely by free to play titles such as Genshin Impact and other gacha based releases. Pahdo Labs pursued a paid alternative with a distinct visual tone, but market conditions left little room for that approach.