That Surprise Splinter Cell-Like From Last Year’s Xbox Showcase Might Be In Trouble

During last year’s Xbox Games Showcase, Korea-based developer EVR Studio announced Mudang: Two Hearts, a stealth action-adventure game with a notable resemblance to the Splinter Cell series. Now, the team’s website appears offline, and reports hint at possible layoffs in the past few months.

As reported by Need4Games, EVR allegedly laid off multiple people due to a lack of funding. The claim is based on a Korean tracking site, which shows the number of employees decreasing from over a hundred to just 22 as of the time of publication.

In addition, sources speaking to Need4Games were reportedly negative about the studio’s situation, with one of the investors of EVR Studio reportedly saying that Mudang is meant to be released by the end of March 2026, which is also the end of the current fiscal year. “If we don’t receive it, the investors will be very upset with the situation, then it will be their meeting,” reads the report.

The outlet also reported a sudden silence in terms of online presence. EVR’s official website currently leads to an error message when accessed, and on The Wayback Machine, the latest backups of the site are dated October 23. Over at the studio’s YouTube channel, the last developer diary—which presented a motion-matching showcase—was uploaded back on August 15, and there have been no more updates since.

On LinkedIn, there are at least 34 people associated with the EVR Studio company profile, although several of those profiles are private. All the public profiles, including those of CEO Yongki Yoon, co-founder, director, and executive producer Dong joon Min, art director Bryan ku, and UI designer Jihong Lee, showcase “present” in the respective Experience tabs of their profile, indicating they are still employed at the company.

EVR also has a Discord server, which shows over 2,300 members at the time of publication. As of now, the general chat channel is filled with people speculating about the state of the game based on the aforementioned reports, seemingly without an official response from the developer. The latest update, shared via a behind-the-scenes channel, was issued back on August 29.

Back then, EVR said all development divisions were focused on validating the playable build to ensure stability, running regression testing and balance tuning. The team also added that the following dev diary update may experience a slight delay because of these tests. “Our team is fully committed to delivering a level of quality that will be recognized by players worldwide, and we look forward to sharing the next stage of progress with you soon,” reads the Discord message.

Mudang: Two Hearts is slated to launch in 2026 on PC, PS5, and Xbox consoles. According to EVR, the game hit 100,000 wishlists by July 25 of last year.

Kotaku has reached out to EVR Studio for comment.