Heartbreak for Espionage Fans as MUDANG: Two Hearts Project Collapses

3 weeks ago 10

Jaime Tugayev is the News Editor for DualShockers with over a decade of experience, and a much longer love for fantasy, shooters and strategy games.

A successful infiltration mission means don't be seen, don't be heard, and don't drop any bodies that are not part of the mission. Since Hideo Kojima's untimely departure from the Metal Gear universe in 2015, the world of tactical espionage has been worse than dormant.

You see, if there were no news about bombastic stealth games in the making, we could cope by saying that maybe it's all just being concealed nicely. Great meta commentary: a spy game you don't see coming, how cool would that be?

Unfortunately, what we got instead is the death, either confirmed or impending, of one of the most promising espionage titles previously in development. The list of possible heirs for the throne of the generational spy game grows ever narrower, and considering a lot of the candidates are remakes, it is a bad omen for the longevity of the genre.

Korean Espionage Blockbuster Compromised

The latest victim of the espionage curse seems to be MUDANG: Two Hearts, an ambitious South Korean project that went public back in 2022.

MUDANG had attracted considerable attention due to its smooth graphics and high-quality animation sequences showcased in the game's YouTube channel throughout the development process.

The game was one of the highlights of last year's Xbox Games Showcase back in June, but what should have been a triumphant summer quickly turned into a disaster that threatens the very existence of the studio.

What we got instead is the death, either confirmed or impending, of one of the most promising espionage titles

A report by journalist Dante Alexandru, citing data from Korean portal The VC, shows that developer EVR Studio shrank from over 135 employees to just 22 from the beginning of 2025 until July. Most alarmingly, since December 8th, "only the two co-CEOs remain at the studio," according to the social media page Xbox News for Koreans.

Citing conversations with an unnamed investor, Alexandru claims that backers still expect the game to come out "by the end of March 2026," with a meeting to be called if this does not come to pass.

Although this deadline does align with the previous announcement that the game would come out in 2026, it wouldn't be foolish to expect Half-Life 3 to come out sometime before that. The most recent public footage of MUDANG: Two Hearts shows crisp animations and visuals, but not all character models and environments appear to have been textured.

Even if one were to be charitable and assume that the art assets are done and were being intentionally withheld, it is hard to believe that a game slated for a "sometime in 2026" release in June 2025 could magically be ready by March 2026 with a crew reduced to two people shortly after that.

With less than three months on the clock, I want to hold out hope that investors will see the promise in the premise and the work done so far, but it's hard to stay positive when it seems we are destined for yet another IGI Origins situation.

Like in the films, it looks like the only person who can save the world after all that is Mr. Bond, James Bond. Although the road has not been entirely smooth for IO Interactive, it seems that this will be the big-ticket original espionage game of the year. Nostalgics will have to contend with the upcoming Splinter Cell Remake and another playthrough of Metal Gear Solid Delta. All of which are great, of course, but they cannot replace the MUDANG-shaped hole in my two hearts.