Stray Souls inherited a severe (but fair) 3/10 in our columns, trails a not happy 31/100 average on MetaCritic, and a block of “rather negative” evaluations on Steam… It’s not truly what you could call a warm welcome. It must be said that the title of Jukai Studio being more than shaky, it could only find a place on the virtual shelves, classified in the “cheesy” section.
Wandering souls
Apart from any consideration of quality for Stray Souls, Jukai Studio explained in a press release on X/Twitter that the development conditions for the game were more than delicate. The Jukai and producer Versus Evil teams were victims of cyberharassment, during the development of the game, and after its launch: “We did everything in our power to complete the project in the best possible form, but throughout its duration, we (Jukai Studio), the publisher’s staff, the publisher’s other dev teams and our loved ones have been constantly attacked by a cyber stalker, and some of you as a community have also been tormented by unwanted messages and emails. We understand that you did not wish to continue actively supporting us for the obvious reasons mentioned above.”
An update regarding Jukai Studio future. pic.twitter.com/T0tyAiUwus
— Jukai Studio (@JukaiStudio) December 22, 2023
It is difficult to know if it is the commercial underperformance of Stray Souls or the deleterious climate that had settled in the offices of Jukai and Versus Evil which got the better of these teams. On the Versus Evil side, the communication was much more laconic: “Today is a sad day. After 10 wonderful years, Versus Evil is closing its doors. We loved bringing you the best indie games we could find and sharing so many great memories with all of you, our amazing community! From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for everything!“.
Also read | Skul: The Hero Slayer tops two million sales
Also read | Suda51 confirms a 2024 release for Shadows of the Damned: Remastered