Assemble's Gentlymad Studios Is Closing Its Doors

Gentlymad Studios, the in-house game development studio of Assemble Entertainment in Wiesbaden, is set to close at the end of September 2025. A total of 25 people will be affected. Ultimately, they were unable to build on the success of Endzone.

Gentlymad Studios was founded in 2014 and released the game In Between in 2015, prior to the establishment of Assemble Entertainment in March 2016. In October 2017, Assemble Entertainment took over the studio and made it an internal development studio. Since then, Pizza Connection 3, Endzone and Endzone 2 were launched on the market. Endzone in particular became the publisher's most successful release to date. However, Endzone 2 was unable to match the popularity of its predecessor.

The closure of Gentlymad Studios will affect 25 people, including the four founders (Daniel Denne, Matthias Guntrum, Stephan Wirth and Wolfgang Reichardt), as well as 13 other team members and eight interns.

Stefan Marcinek, CEO and Founder of Assemble Entertainment & CEO of Gentlymad Studios: "Today I have to share news I never wanted to write: Gentlymad Studios will close at the end of September 2025. 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."

"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 as Stephan Wirth said, 'When criticism rolled in, we didn't retreat.' The team listened, improved, and kept going right until the end. I'll never regret that fight. In the end, those efforts couldn't sustain the studio. It's heartbreaking for the team, the players, and for me personally."

"Thank you to everyone who worked at Gentlymad, and to everyone who played their games, whether you discovered them in a post-apocalyptic wasteland or while running a pizza empire. The people behind these games made them possible, and I'm proud to have worked alongside them."

The following statement has been issued by the team at Gentlymad Studios: "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. 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."

"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. 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."

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