Sega-owned Rovio is shutting down its Copenhagen studio

Diego Argüello,Contributing Editor, News,GameDeveloper.com

September 1, 2026

2 Min ReadImage via Rovio / Sega

Sega-owned Rovio, best known for the Angry Birds franchise, is shutting down its Copenhagen studio following the cancellation of Sonic Blitz.

A Rovio spokesperson confirmed the news to Mobilegamer.biz last week. In a statement, the company said that "following a redundancy process, Rovio will discontinue all its operations in Denmark."

According to the statement, the process is still ongoing, so Rovio hasn't confirmed an exact number of redundancies. That being said, "around 20 employees" worked on the now canceled Sonic Blitz project, the spokesperson added.

"For team members who we cannot allocate to a new project within Rovio, we will provide a comprehensive transition package, including dedicated outplacement services and wellbeing support to assist them in securing their next career opportunities," the company told Mobilegamer.

The statement goes on to say that the decision has been "extremely difficult," and that Rovio fully recognizes the impact this has on the team, especially "given the ongoing challenges" within the broader game industry.

For context, Sonic Blitz was a hybrid runner and card collection game for mobile devices. In an interview, Sega West COO and Rovio CEO Alex Pelletier-Normand told Mobilegamer that retention didn't meet expectations, saying that the studio needs to "see people engage with the game for a long period of time."

Sega completed its acquisition of Rovio back in mid August of 2023. The company closed down subsidiary Studio Lumi four months later, and it shut down its Moomin mobile game in April of 2024. Then, in October of last year, the company laid off 36 employees, saying it was reorganizing internally and "tightening relations" with Sega. Earlier this year, Sega lamented its failure to make more from its collaboration with Rovio.

"I still am convinced that there is a way to reach more players on mobile with Sonic, it turns out that it's much more complicated than I think both Sega and Rovio thought," Pelletier-Normand told Mobilegamer. "We're still very proud of the game, very proud of what the team achieved, but it didn't work."

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About the Author

Diego Argüello

Contributing Editor, News, GameDeveloper.com

Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist and critic from Argentina. Video games helped him to learn English, so now he covers them for places like The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, and more. He also runs Into the Spine, a site dedicated to fostering and supporting new writers, and co-hosted Turnabout Breakdown, a podcast about the Ace Attorney series. He’s most likely playing a rhythm game as you read this.

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