Fortis Games Shuts Down: Up To 440 Employees Lose Their Jobs

Another studio closure in an already tough year: Mobile publisher Fortis Games is shutting down. Up to 440 employees are affected. This was reported by GamesIndustry.biz, citing a statement Fortis provided to GamesBeat. Co-founder Steven Chiang succinctly stated to GamesBeat that the company had not achieved the goals it set since its founding.

For anyone still playing one of the company's games, there's already a firm date: Twilight Towers will be shut down on November 16. So, there isn't much time left for a final round.

Why is Fortis Games closing?

Fortis Games was primarily financed by the casino and resort conglomerate Las Vegas Sands. According to a former employee cited by GamesIndustry.biz, this funding has been terminated. Without fresh capital from its main backer, the project apparently became unsustainable. Official confirmation from Las Vegas Sands on this point is not available in the reports.

Fortis was founded in 2022 by two industry veterans who previously worked at Warner Bros. Games: Steven Chiang and Shawn Foust. Several studios operated under the Fortis umbrella:

Doppio Games
Oktagon Games
Metagame

The portfolio included mobile titles Mergemon Wilds, Twilight Towers, and Bloom & Breakfast. With the exception of Twilight Towers' shutdown, current reports do not indicate what will happen to the other games.

Twilight Towers: What players should know before November 16

Twilight Towers: Merge Defense is a free-to-play blend of tower defense and merge mechanics: you combine towers into stronger variants and deploy dragons against incoming waves of enemies. The title officially launched earlier this year after being tested in a soft launch. If you still have the game on your phone, you should prepare for its demise. Our advice: do not spend any more real money on gems or bundles. With live-service games, everything you've purchased in-game is typically lost when the game is shut down.

Las Vegas Sands and a second digital exit in a short time

The funder's withdrawal is not entirely surprising. Las Vegas Sands had already discontinued its own digital gaming project in October 2025, affecting 300 to 400 jobs, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The fact that the conglomerate is now also cutting off funding for Fortis fits the pattern: the casino giant is refocusing on its core business of resorts in Macau and Singapore, with digital experiments taking a backseat.

For the industry, this is another warning sign. A publisher with three studios and hundreds of employees, founded by experienced individuals from the AAA environment, only lasted four years. The mobile market is brutally saturated, new brands require enormous marketing investment, and those dependent on a single investor are left with nothing without them. Even major players are currently streamlining their portfolios, as shown by the cancellation of Fairgame from Haven Studios at Sony and the layoffs in Skydance's games division. This is particularly difficult for the up to 440 people who now need to find new employment.