Skullgirls developer Hidden Variable has announced it will cease all work on the franchise owing to an ongoing legal dispute with publisher Autumn Games.
In a post on Bluesky (spotted by ResetEra user dgamemaster), Hidden Variable says it is "no longer involved" in developing any Skullgirls game, including Skullgirls 2nd Encore, Skullgirls Mobile, and "other Skullgirls IP-related efforts".
The studio says it's in the middle of a dispute with Autumn Games which has been escalated to "litigation filed in the Los Angeles County Superior Court", and that it won't be providing further comment on the matter until said issue is resolved.
Although Hidden Variable says it won't be commenting on the matter, dgamemaster sought out the legal document filed by the studio, and it looks as though the dispute comes down to missed payments.
Specifically, Hidden Variable appears to be alleging that Autumn Games failed to pay it a number of times between November and now, with payments amounting to $1.23m due to Hidden Variable on Autumn Games' behalf.
The developer says Autumn's actions were intentional, and that the publisher was intending to find a new developer for the Skullgirls games after it "unsuccessfully sought to sell its business". Ouch.
According to dgamemaster's post, Autumn Games has said that it intends to continue updating Skullgirls despite the dispute, but it hasn't specified which of the games it will be updating, nor when new updates will be made available.
This isn't the first time Skullgirls has run into a spot of bother. Back in 2020, Autumn Games kicked original developer Lab Zero off the IP following allegations made against that studio's head Mike Zaimont.
Following those allegations, Zaimont subsequently laid off all remaining Lab Zero employees, with former staff going on to create a new studio by the name of Future Club. That studio would then work on Skullgirls DLC, thus completing the cycle.
The future of the Skullgirls franchise is currently unclear, although it sounds like Autumn Games intends to continue working on at least one of the games in the series. Stay tuned for more.
