Digital Bros, the company that publishes games under its label 505 Games, has revealed through a new press release that the most recent action RPG by developer Mercury Steam—Blades of Fire—has performed below the company’s expectations. In its announcement, Digital Bros has said that it is lowering its revenue projections for the 2024-2025 fiscal year to be below what it was in the previous year.
“The video game market remains affected by challenging competitive dynamics, driven by an oversupply of new releases and increasingly selective consumers,” wrote the company in its announcement. “These conditions make it particularly difficult to successfully launch new titles and to develop reliable forecasting models capable of accurately projecting sales and volumes at launch.”
The company further goes on to explain that, despite the critical praise seen by Blades of Fire, the game performed under the expectations that had been set by Digital Bros. The reason for it, the company believes, has to do with challenges that arise from releasing a brand new game that isn’t already part of a pre-existing franchise.
“This confirms the challenges faced by most industry peers and competitors in attracting consumers to new titles, particularly when these are not backed by an established brand driving a loyal player community,” wrote Digital Bros. “Consequently, revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, which was already projected to decline year-on-year, is now expected to contract even further.”
Blades of Fire being unable to meet the company’s sales targets has meant that around EUR 8 million has to be written off based on preliminary tests done by its board of directors. The overall EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) losses for the fiscal year is expected to sit at around EUR 10 million.
Blades of Fire was released on PC (exclusively via Epic Games Store), PS5 and Xbox Series X/S back in May. The action RPG takes cues from FromSoftware’s Souls-style of games when it comes to having deliberate combat and challenging encounters, and pairs it with its own unique progression system that revolves around the player making use of a forge to craft weapons to take on different situations.
Players take on the role of King’s Ward firstborn Aran de Lira, who has set out on a quest to stop the evil machinations of Queen Nerca, who is able to use her magical abilities to turn steel into stone.
While a demo for the game has been out for quite some time now, Blades of Fire recently also got a 10-hour free trial on Xbox Series X/S over the previous weekend. This free trial was essentially the full game, albeit with a time limit of 10 hours, after which players could transfer their progress over to the full game if they decided to pick it up.
Previously, Blades of Fire’s lead game designer, Joan Amat, had spoken about how the progression system in the game doesn’t ultimately end with players becoming magical gods. For more details about the action RPG, check out our review.
