Midsummer Studios

Midsummer Studios was an independent video game development company headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, in the Baltimore region. It was founded by Creative Director and CEO Jake Solomon and Game Director Will Miller, both previously of Firaxis Games, together with COO/CFO Nelsie Birch, who came from two decades of financial and operational leadership roles with cities and counties. The studio publicly launched on May 14, 2024, staffed by developers who had worked on franchises including Sid Meier's Civilization, XCOM and The Sims, and it added former Maxis producer and director Grant Rodiek, an 18-year veteran of The Sims franchise.

The studio's single project was a next-generation life simulation game centered on emergent, player-driven narrative: systems-driven gameplay in a modern-life setting where players generate stories through play and share them with others. The title was later revealed as Burbank, described by Solomon as "Life Sims + The Truman Show." According to Solomon, the game used AI to write and voice characters so players could create arbitrary characters and drop them into their own stories, while all art was produced by the studio's artists.

On February 20, 2026, Solomon announced that Midsummer Studios was closing, publishing roughly three minutes of pre-alpha footage of Burbank. No reason for the closure was given by the studio. Reporting described the shutdown as ending a two-year run and as involving the elimination of the studio's workforce.

Founding story

Jake Solomon left Firaxis Games after 23 years, following the 2022 launch of Marvel's Midnight Suns and the subsequent team cuts by Take-Two, and decided to found his own studio. He has said the concept grew from an interest in emergent player stories and from the observation that modern real life, the most common setting in television, film and books, is one of the least common settings in games. He founded Midsummer with fellow Firaxis veteran Will Miller and Nelsie Birch, raising funding during a period of widespread industry layoffs and studio closures.

Business model

Venture-funded independent game development studio building an original life sim title for release; no shipped commercial product was announced before the studio closed. Solomon publicly described the studio's venture capital arrangement as one in which investors provided the agreed funding upfront without milestone-setting, revenue sharing or day-to-day control, with returns dependent on a rare exit event such as an acquisition or IPO.

Traction

At its May 2024 launch the studio had three founders and 11 employees and had raised $6 million. Its debut title, Burbank, reached a pre-alpha state, footage of which was published in February 2026, but was never released.

Latest developments

On February 20, 2026, Jake Solomon announced on X that Midsummer Studios would close, sharing roughly three minutes of pre-alpha footage of Burbank on YouTube. He said the game was "like 'Life Sims + The Truman Show'" and, in a follow-up post, that Burbank used AI to write and voice characters while all art was made by the studio's artists. No reason for the closure was disclosed by the studio; reporting characterized it as a complete shutdown affecting the entire workforce.