Midway Newcastle has two weeks to find a buyer for the studio or a publisher for its unannounced open world title, or face closure.

In May Warner Bros. bid $33 million for the majority of bankrupt Midway’s assets, but that didn't include its San Diego or Newcastle studios. According to the Guardian, these teams now have until the end of the month to secure buyers or at least new investors or they will be forced to close.

"100 percent of my efforts and focus are on finding a solution to keep the studio going forward, making it viable and securing jobs in the team," Midway Newcastle studio head Craig Duncan said. "It may sound like a football cliché but this studio is too good a team to have to shut down – it would be a travesty."

The developer’s currently working on an unannounced open world project using Epic's Unreal Engine 3, and Duncan recently used the E3 show in Las Vegas to demo it to prospective suitors.

"I met with a number of interested parties," he said. "When we presented the new game everyone loved it and was really impressed with our proposition. What counts against us is the timeframe and the fact the market is tough currently for both investors and games companies… if I had £100k for every time someone said, 'a year ago we would have bought you', I could buy the studio personally."