Tim Gerritsen, studio head of Fantasy Flight Interactive and formerly a director at Irrational Games took to LinkedIn this afternoon to announce the unfortunate closure of the two-year-old studio. Based out of Madison, Wisconsin, Fantasy Flight Interactive has only a single game to its credit: The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game, which released in August of last year. The game set itself apart with a greater emphasis on narrative and cooperative play, than it's other digital TCG counterparts.

Gerritsen shared this message on LinkedIn earlier today:

"It's with great sadness that I have to report that the decision has been made to close Fantasy Flight Interactive next month. I'm proud of the team and the game we've dedicated ourselves to for the past few years. It's a been an amazing journey with even more amazing people. I'm going to do my best to get my team placed in new positions. I have programmers, designers, artists, QA staff and a producer to get placed in new roles and will do my best to do so quickly. Additionally, I'm now open to new opportunities myself since I will also be out of a job."

The most recent update posted on the studio's website on the 16th of December, gave no indication that the studio's closure was imminent or that they were in trouble. It was quite the opposite, instead informing players that they could now play the second and third campaigns and the new Mirror of Galadriel game mode, for free. Two weeks prior to that, on December 2, the studio detailed their upcoming release plans which stated that their focus was primarily on the release of the console ports of the title.

In his post, Gerritsen gave no hint of what was going to happen to LotR: ACG and its servers. Nothing yet has been posted on FFI's website regarding the closure next month, or what the future of LotR: ACG may be. Taking a look at the game's numbers, which, according to SteamCharts, show that in the past 30 days, the game only had an average of about 34 players at a time and a peak of 86 players.

As I write this, the game's Steam Community Hub page shows that there is currently not a single person playing the game. Numbers like these bode ill for the prospect of the servers remaining turned on long after the closure next month.

In June of last year, our writer, Ricky Frech made mention just how similar this game visually looked like Hearthstone. Unfortunately, though, it couldn't draw the player base like Blizzard's behemoth.

It should be noted, Fantasy Flight Interactive is a separate group from the main Fantasy Flight company. They are not closing, only Interactive is.

It's always sad seeing a studio, especially one so young, close. Being displaced and having to quickly work is never a fun experience, especially so soon after the holidays. I imagine in the coming days, we will be finding out more about what led to this closure. As such, DualShockers will keep you up to date as we find out more.