The XCOM Creator's New Studio Just Shut Down. $6 Million Wasn't Enough.

Jake Solomon built XCOM. Not the 1994 original — the 2012 reboot that turned a dead franchise into one of the defining strategy games of the last two decades. He spent over 20 years at Firaxis. Then he left, raised $6 million in venture capital, started Midsummer Studios, and made a life simulation game called Burbank.

Midsummer Studios shut down last week.

"We built a studio, we made a game, and I'm really proud of both," Solomon wrote on X, alongside pre-alpha footage of the game. "Before we close the doors at Midsummer Studios I'd like to share a glimpse of Burbank, the game we poured our hearts into."

He gave no reason for the closure. He didn't need to. The shape of the story says everything.

What Burbank Was

Solomon described Burbank as "Life Sims + The Truman Show." The pitch: you create characters with AI-driven dialogue and voicing, drop them into scenarios you write, and watch stories unfold. The characters could be anyone. The stories could go anywhere.

It's a genuinely interesting concept. Life simulation as a storytelling tool, with AI doing the heavy lifting on character voice so the player doesn't have to script every line. Solomon was careful to clarify that Midsummer used AI for characters but not for art — "all of our art is created by our talented artists. We had no interest in replacing any developers with AI."

The game never shipped. We got pre-pre-alpha footage posted as a farewell. That's it.

The $6 Million Problem

When Midsummer launched in 2024, Solomon raised $6 million from Transcend Fund, Betaworks Ventures, Krafton, and others. At the time, he was optimistic about VC funding for games, even as the industry was bleeding layoffs.

"Life sims have been very underserved," he said then. "There were people who said, flat out, 'we've been waiting for somebody who seems equipped to do this... give us this pitch.'"

Six million dollars sounds like a lot. In game development, it's a runway. A studio of even 10-15 people burns through that in two years without shipping anything. And Burbank wasn't close to shipping — the footage Solomon shared looked like early concept work.

Solomon Already Explained Why This Was Always Risky

In a 2025 interview, Solomon laid out the VC model for game studios with unusual clarity.

"Any company funded by VC knows the deal," he said. "You are expected to not just make a great game, but a transformational one." VC investors need an exit event — an acquisition or IPO — to make money. "Exit events for game studios are rare."

He was describing the exact trap he was in. VC funding isn't about making a good game. It's about making a game that can be sold or taken public. Life simulation with AI characters is a cool idea. Whether it's an acquisition target for a major publisher or IPO-ready is a different question entirely.

When the answer to that second question turns out to be no, the studio closes.

The Pattern That Keeps Repeating

Midsummer isn't a unique failure. It's a familiar one.

A veteran developer with serious credentials — Jake Solomon is not a nobody, he built one of the most successful strategy franchises of the 2010s — leaves a stable position, raises money, starts a studio, makes an ambitious game that doesn't ship on schedule, runs out of runway, shuts down.

We've seen this with studio after studio over the last three years. Jake Solomon. Midsummer. Burbank. Add them to the list.

The indie game funding cycle is broken in a specific way: the money comes from VC, VC needs exits, exits require either massive commercial success or acquisition, and the gap between "funded indie studio" and "acquisition target" is enormous. Most studios that fill that gap successfully do it by making something that already worked — a sequel, a spin-off, a known IP. Genuinely new concepts like Burbank are a harder sell to acquirers who want predictable returns.

What Small Developers Are Learning From This

Working on STIGMA: Unnamed, our rhythm action game currently in development for Steam, the lesson from Midsummer is one I keep coming back to: VC money solves one problem (not having money) while creating another (you now owe an exit).

The studios that survive without exits are the ones that ship. Revenue from a shipped game, even a small one, is a different kind of fuel than VC runway. It doesn't run out on a fixed schedule. It scales with the audience you build.

Jake Solomon built something ambitious. He was proud of it. And he ran out of time before he could prove it to anyone else. That's genuinely sad. But it's also a structural problem, not a talent problem — and understanding the difference matters if you're an independent developer figuring out how to build something that lasts.

The Footage

Before closing, Solomon shared pre-alpha footage of Burbank on X. It's worth watching. The concept is coherent. The game clearly had real thought behind it. The AI character system looked functional.

It's the kind of thing that makes the closure frustrating rather than inevitable. The problem wasn't that the game was bad. The problem was that two years and $6 million isn't enough time or money to take an ambitious new concept from idea to market, and the VC model doesn't leave much room for extensions.

Midsummer Studios is done. Burbank won't ship. Jake Solomon will probably do something else — he's too good at his craft not to. But the studio and the game are gone, and the industry is worse off for it.

FAQ

Who is Jake Solomon?

Jake Solomon is a veteran game designer best known for leading the development of XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012) and XCOM 2 (2016) at Firaxis Games, where he worked for over 20 years. He left Firaxis in 2023 to found Midsummer Studios.

What was Burbank?

Burbank was a life simulation game described by Solomon as "Life Sims + The Truman Show." It featured AI-generated dialogue and voice acting for player-created characters, allowing players to construct their own stories and scenarios. The game was in early development and never shipped.

Why did Midsummer Studios shut down?

Solomon did not publicly specify the reason for the closure. The studio raised $6 million in 2024 and operated for approximately two years. Given that Burbank was still in pre-alpha, the most likely cause is that the studio exhausted its funding runway before reaching a shippable product.

What happens to the Burbank game now?

Based on Solomon's statement, the studio is closing and the game will not be released. Pre-alpha footage shared on X is the only public look at what Burbank would have been.

What is STIGMA: Unnamed?

STIGMA: Unnamed is a rhythm action game currently in development for Steam. Wishlist it now to stay updated on its release.