As a former dedicated Insurgency player... Yeah, there were very few people worth keeping at NWI. They made an awesome concept for a game and then had to spend years upon years fixing incomprehensible, Garry's Mod level bugs.
And let me tell you, Insurgency at the end of its life was becoming a humungously popular game, and they announced and released its sequel, Insurgency: Sandstorm far too early.
So NWI had made a lot of very silly mistakes, and yet there is a wonderful game with a wonderful community still there.
UPDATE: Saber Interactive has provided Insider Gaming with the following statement on the news that New World Interactive is being shut down.
“Saber can confirm there have been restructuring changes involving our New World Interactive subsidiary. This reorganization has unfortunately resulted in layoffs at the studio. We are working to fill existing open roles within Saber with individuals affected by these changes wherever feasible and we will be providing severance packages to those employees impacted.
“Development will continue on Insurgency: Sandstorm, as well as unannounced future projects.”
Insurgency was great, but I never got into Sandstorm and just stopped playing Insurgency at that point. I think they were expecting to go big with the sequel, but it was always going to be a niche game.
Sandstorm launched in a rough state but some mods made it interesting.
Yeah, they were pushing for a wider public with things like cosmetics that would be more in place in Rainbow Six Siege than a grittier tactical shooter (it did not go well with the community). I've mostly fallen off this game after having played some form of it since the Half-Life mod days. I've only played one game a couple of weeks ago because a friend had his heavily modded server back up like the good old times but I've barely played it at all this year.