The team behind “Stardew Valley meets Skyrim” viral hit Hawthorn are “developing this game from [their] personal pockets”.
Earlier this month we reported that several former developers from studios such as Bethesda, BioWare and Naughty Dog had banded together to develop the delightful-looking Hawthorn, which you can check out below:
Despite popping up on of wishlists, however, Near Studios co-founder and CEO, Heather Cerlan, has revealed that despite the fervent interest its game has sparked, the dozen or so developers responsible for bringing Hawthorn to life are still not getting paid as the studio has no funding.
“The fact that we are developing this game from our personal pockets was completely lost,” Cerlan told to Bloomberg. “We have the ambitions and the visions; we don’t however have the funding yet.”
Near Studios was founded in 2022 but following a desperate family tragedy, Cerlan’s plans were derailed and the team lost two of its original co-founders – one “because of a disagreement in direction; the other because he couldn’t get out of a previous contract”. She then got in touch with former Bethesda coworker Jason Richardson, who “had been envisaging Hawthorn for many years”.