Liquid Swords, the Stockholm studio behind the open-world crime game Samson, is now bankrupt, Swedish business outlet Breakit reported on October 15. The studio had not paid salaries for several months, and its nearly 30 employees will now be compensated through the Swedish state, according to the report. Breakit adds that the bankruptcy trustee is hopeful of finding a buyer.
Liquid Swords was founded in 2020 by Christofer Sundberg, who co-founded Avalanche Studios and created the Just Cause series. Samson, released in April 2026, is the only game it shipped.
Samson launched on PC on April 8, 2026, and reached PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on September 21. Image: Liquid Swords
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Why did Liquid Swords go bankrupt?
The trouble became public a week earlier. On October 9, Breakit revealed that the studio was in an acute cash shortage and had not paid wages for two months, and that dozens of employees had petitioned for the company to be declared bankrupt over the missed payments. Sundberg told the outlet: “I don’t think it can be solved” (in Swedish: “Jag tror inte att det går att lösa”). Breakit’s full articles are behind a paywall; the details above come from their published summaries.
Under Sweden’s state wage guarantee, the trustee decides how much each employee is owed for unpaid salary and notice-period pay, and the Swedish Tax Agency pays it out, as Skatteverket explains. It is capped at four price base amounts per person (SEK 236,800 for bankruptcies decided in 2026) and at eight months of pay, and it covers wages earned no earlier than three months before the bankruptcy petition was filed.
Funding, layoffs and a long road to Samson
- November 2022: Liquid Swords announced an investment from NetEase Games and said it would stay independent. The amount was not disclosed.
- February 2025: the studio announced layoffs without saying how many people were affected. Sundberg said then that “shifting market conditions prevented us from succeeding within our timeframe.”
- April 8, 2026: Samson launched on PC (Steam and the Epic Games Store) for $24.99.
- September 21, 2026: the game reached PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, according to the studio’s Steam announcements.
At launch, Sundberg was candid about the game’s state. He told players in a Steam post, reported by VGC, that many were hitting “game-breaking bugs and performance issues,” and said: “That’s unacceptable.” Around the same time he told GamesRadar+ that he made Samson partly out of frustration with the industry: “I can’t just sit and watch leaders of this business, just flushing it all down in the toilet,” he said, adding: “I’d rather go down screaming, than haven’t at least tried to get us back on track.”
Combat responsiveness was the focus of the studio's final update on October 8. Image: Liquid Swords
How Samson was received
Samson sits at 51 on Metacritic for PC. On Steam, user reviews were “Mixed” when we checked on October 17, with 1,998 of 3,591 reviews positive (about 56%). Insider Gaming notes that critical Steam reviews complain about bugs and slow-to-respond controls, while positive ones praise the atmosphere and Steam Deck optimization.
The team kept patching until days before the bankruptcy. Its last update, on October 8, rebalanced the game’s “Daily Due” cash target and improved combat responsiveness, which the studio said it had heard a lot of feedback about from both PC and console players. A tips post followed on October 9, the same day Breakit broke the news about unpaid wages.
Can you still buy Samson, and will it get updates?
Yes, for now: the Steam store page still listed Samson at $24.99 on October 17. We found no statement from the studio or the trustee about future patches, store listings or who would own the game after a sale.
A hard week for studios
The news lands in a week of job cuts across the industry. On October 14, Ubisoft proposed closing Trials developer RedLynx (up to 52 positions) and cut 70 roles at Ubisoft Singapore. On October 16, Embracer-owned Fishlabs announced layoffs in its development and support teams without saying how many people were affected, GamesIndustry.biz reported; we covered it in our October 16 news live blog. Fishlabs is also a reminder that a studio can outlive insolvency: it filed for the German equivalent of bankruptcy in 2013 before Koch Media, now Plaion, bought it, GamesIndustry.biz notes. Labor tension is rising elsewhere too, with Activision QA testers voting to authorize a strike.
What’s next
The trustee hopes to sell the business or its assets, and employees will claim their unpaid wages through the state guarantee. We’ll update this story if a buyer appears, or if Liquid Swords or Sundberg comment on the bankruptcy or on Samson‘s future.
Sources: Breakit (Oct 15), Breakit (Oct 9), Insider Gaming, Steam, Liquid Swords, VGC, GamesRadar+, Skatteverket, GamesIndustry.biz.
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Featured image: Liquid Swords
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