16.4ms frame times were the target for the Gang of Dragon technical preview, but 1% lows frequently plummeted to 45.2ms during the heavy rain sequences in the Shibuya-inspired district. According to Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed, the project’s future was effectively severed on March 6, 2026, when NetEase notified staff that all funding would cease by May. Running the v0.48 alpha build on an RTX 5080 with the “Ultra” preset at 1440p highlighted why that ¥7 billion—roughly £33 million – in additional capital was required; the 114GB storage footprint is bloated with unoptimized assets that current hardware struggles to stream without massive hitching.
The ¥7 billion budget wall
Nagoshi Studio, which was founded in 2021 after the creator’s departure from Sega, is now facing a total collapse of its production pipeline. The £33 million gap identified by NetEase isn’t just a random figure; it represents the cost of resolving the shader compilation stutters and lighting bugs that have plagued every build since the 2025 internal milestone. This funding withdrawal follows a 2025 trend of broader job cuts within NetEase’s portfolio, mirroring the 2024 abandonment of the Worlds Untold project. I’ve seen the VRAM usage on this title spike to 14.8GB on the v0.48 version, a clear sign that the dev team lacked the resources to implement a proper culling system before the money ran out.
Hardware bottlenecks and may deadlines
The May 2026 deadline gives Toshihiro Nagoshi less than sixty days to secure a buyer willing to absorb those £33 million in projected losses. During my time testing the combat mechanics, the physics engine frequently desynced when frame rates dropped below 50fps, a bug that was reported three patches ago but never fixed. The studio has been in constant flux since 2021, and the current state of Gang of Dragon shows the scars of that instability. NetEase has offered to let the studio keep the branding if they cover the costs, but with the 114GB of source code currently locked behind a funding dispute, the likelihood of this game hitting a stable 60fps on retail shelves is effectively zero.
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