In a shocking, sad, and out of nowhere turn of events, Disney has decided to close down its Disney Infinity division, effective June. The axing of the division also spells the end for Infinity developer Avalanche software. From Disney:

By now you may have heard the news that we have made the difficult decision to discontinue production of Disney Infinity. From the beginning, Disney Infinity was built for you—our fans—and I wanted to take a moment to thank you not just for your support over the years, but for creating a community that made Disney Infinity more than just a game.

Our goal for Disney Infinity was to bring the best of Disney storytelling to life in homes around the world, and with your support we accomplished that. We hope you had as much fun playing the game as we had making it.

So what’s next for Disney Infinity? We have two final retail releases coming, including three new characters from Alice Through the Looking Glass later this month, and the Finding Dory Play Set launching in June.

And as we turn to the next chapter in our story, I want to thank everyone who helped bring Disney Infinity to life, particularly Disney’s Glendale-based production and publishing teams, our external development partners, and of course the incredible Avalanche team for their tireless dedication to this project.

But most of all, I want to again thank you for making Disney Infinity a part of your lives—and for adding to the Disney legacy by being a part of this community.

Furthermore, here’s another short memo that was sent to employees today:

The team behind Disney Infinity created an incredible product. It was a critical success that inspired a deeply engaged community of players. But, despite Disney Infinity’s quality, it has become difficult to financially justify continued investment given the lack of growth in the toys-to-life market. Coupled with high development costs, the economics of our current vertical business model no longer add up.

Though this comes at a surprise, the writing has perhaps been somewhat on the wall for this. Activision’s Skylanders and Disney Infinity have been annual franchises since their respective inceptions, and the announcement in March that there would be no 4.0 this year, coupled with lower performance sales figures even with the Star Wars themed 3.0 edition last year, meant that things were perhaps not that rosy in the magic kingdom. Optimistically though, I was hoping that this would be a turning around point for Disney Infinity while they rethought the platform, especially coming off of the excellent new additions in 3.0 like the Kart racer Toy Box Speedway and the spectacular Marvel Battlegrounds play set.

Admittedly, I wasn’t the hugest fan of the Disney Infinity game itself and even was pretty critical of 2014’s Disney Infinity 2.0, a game I was very much looking forward to, but I still was very much in love with the figures and was eagerly anticipating more this year, like a potential Doctor Strange in the fall. The play sets, my favourite aspect of Disney Infinity, were also starting to shape up to be something special not only in the Marvel side with Battlegrounds, but in the surprisingly great co-op puzzle-platformer based off of last year’s Pixar film, Inside Out. 

Finally, I’d like to send out all my best wishes to those affected by this, and hope that everyone lands on their feet. Though it may offer little comfort, I would like to thank all involved with Disney Infinity who helped bring my favorite characters from the Marvel Universe to the toys-to-life genre of games.

VIA INFINITY INQUIRER