Following layoffs, Wooga confirms the death of Black Anvil Games

German game maker and publisher Wooga recently confirmed to PocketGamer that it has shut down its internal game studio Black Anvil Games and cut ties with Black Anvil chief Wilhelm Oesterberg.

The news is especially notable because it reinforces how significant Wooga's recent restructuring to focus on "casual" mobile games like puzzlers and hidden object games has been. The restructuring cost the company about 40 people (roughly 10 percent of its workforce) and now it's clear that it also spelled the end for Black Anvil, which debuted back in March as Wooga's up-and-coming studio focused on "midcore strategy games."

In fact, Black Anvil only recently released its inaugural game Warlords (pictured), a free-to-play hex-based strategy game that appears to be well-reviewed on the Google Play storefront.

"We’re very proud of the work the Black Anvil team did with Warlords," a Wooga representative told PocketGamer. "Given Wooga’s recent decision to focus exclusively on creating hit casual mobile games, Warlords will be Black Anvil’s final game."

The German mobile game industry has had a rough go of it this month: Fellow German game dev Gameforge recently confirmed plans to shift away from mobile games and focus on PC game development -- laying off approximately 90 people in the process.