Jake Solomon Shuts Down Midsummer Studios as Its First Life Sim Is Canceled

Midsummer Studios is shutting down before releasing a first game. PC Gamer reported on February 19, 2026 that Jake Solomon, best known as one of the defining creative leaders behind modern XCOM at Firaxis, announced the studio's closure while also revealing an early look at its canceled project, a life sim called Burbank.

What makes the announcement unusual is how candid Solomon was about the reason. As summarized by PC Gamer, he said there is no game coming from Midsummer and framed the decision around player time rather than simple production delay. His argument was that people have a finite amount of time and a studio only earns that time if it can make something audiences are genuinely excited to play. In his view, Midsummer was not going to reach that threshold, and closing the studio was the honest outcome.

The canceled game also matters because it showed how far Solomon had moved from his previous reputation. Instead of another tactics project, Burbank was described as a life sim with dramatic storylines. The material shared alongside the shutdown suggested that Midsummer was trying to build a more character-driven and socially reactive game, which would have made the project a notable change of direction for a designer so closely tied to turn-based strategy.

What the shutdown tells us

Midsummer Studios is closing before shipping a debut title.

The studio's first project, Burbank, has been canceled.

Jake Solomon said the team could not reach a version players would be excited to spend time with.

The project was positioned as a life sim rather than a new tactics game.

The closure is a reminder that veteran leadership does not remove market risk. Solomon left Firaxis with one of the strongest reputations in strategy design, and that made Midsummer easy to watch. But the announcement suggests reputation alone is not enough when a new studio is building an original project outside the genre where its founders became famous. If the team decided the concept was not landing, there may have been little value in burning more time and money trying to force it to the finish line.

That makes this less a story about one canceled game and more a story about how hard it remains to start a mid-sized studio in 2026. Even with experienced founders and public curiosity, the bar for launching a new IP is high. Solomon's statement lands because it rejects the usual language of "more time" or "future updates." Instead, Midsummer chose to stop, show what it had been making, and admit that not every potentially interesting game should become a shipped product.