Wanderstop was one of 2025’s lovelier surprises. Part tea making cozy sim, part narrative adventure, it was a pretty and surprisingly poignant indie game about living with burnout. Now the studio behind it is closing its doors after failing to get funding for its next game despite a cool-looking prototype.
Today, we must share some bittersweet news: Ivy Road is closing its doors as of March 31st, 2026,” Ivy Road announced on Friday. “It’s hard to put into words how thankful we are to have been able to work together on Wanderstop – this is an incredible group of people! And while we had a new project, Engine Angel, that we were excited about, unfortunately the funding didn’t come to fruition and the studio had to shut down.”
Ivy Road was cofounded in 2021 by Stanley Parable co-creator Davey Wreden with help from publisher Annapurna Interactive. In Wanderstop, players help a fighter navigate her complicated relationship with self-worth and the pursuit of excellence by having her serve tea to an idiosyncratic bunch of characters at a dreamy Alice In Wonderland-like rest stop.
The game received generally positive reviews at launch last year and has a 90 percent Steam review user rating, but the game doesn’t appear to have sold well to secure the studio’s future in an increasingly dire funding landscape. Ivy Road was pitching publishers on a prototype called Engine Angle that looks like Twisted Metal mixed with a Platinum Games hack-and-slash.
“While we tried to shop the concept around and find a publishing partner, unfortunately we weren’t able to land a deal,” the studio announced this week. “It’s a particularly tough time for raising game funds, so while we weren’t necessarily surprised, we are disappointed that we won’t be able to bring Engine Angel to life together as a team.”
In the meantime, Wanderstop will get one final update to let players hack it and play any chapter they want without having to do any of the busy work in-between. A code players input will let them access later sections of the game on demand. Unfortunately, Ivy Road isn’t the first nor the last indie casualty we’re likely to see as the game industry tumbles toward whatever its new future ends up being.
“We were there in the ’80s for the crash, and this is definitely crashier,” Brenda Romero recently said. She and her husband, John Romero, recently found their own studio on the chopping block after surprise cuts from Microsoft last year.
