Phoenix Labs, the developer behind last year’s Fae Farm and Dauntless, has laid off staff and canceled games in development as part of a restructuring at the studio. Polygonal Nicole Carpenter X (formerly Twitter) reported that more than 100 people were laid off at Phoenix Labs.
Shortly after Carpenter’s report, Phoenix Labs released the following statement:
“Today is an incredibly difficult day. After a long period of evaluating how to navigate our financial structure, we have to significantly restructure the company to pave the way for a stronger future. We are reorganizing Phoenix Labs to focus on our best-in-class live service titles, Dauntless and Fay Farm, and their Serving communities.
“This will unfortunately mean the cancellation of work on all other projects at the studio, which will immediately affect many of our colleagues. We are giving notices to everyone whose roles will be affected. This restructuring has not come easily and is a last resort to ensure that Phoenix Labs can survive in the long term and that every project in our studio has their It is impossible to put into words how deeply we respect each and every talented person who contributed their effort and passion.
“We’re doing everything we can to support our departing team members during this interim period and encourage any studios looking for incredible talent to talk to one-of-a-kind people who are part of Phoenix Labs’ journey.”
Phoenix Labs released its latest game, Fae Farm, in September, and before that Dauntless in 2019.
These layoffs join a string of other disappointing 2024 layoffs and closings, which now exceed 10,000 in the first five months of the year.
Square Enix announced earlier this week that the layoffs would begin as part of “structural improvements.”
Earlier this month, Xbox closed four Bethesda studios, including Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks and Redfall studio Arcane Austin. Take-Two Interactive closed rollerdrome studio Roll7 and Kerbal Space Program 2 studio Intercept Games along with major layoffs for its indie-publisher Private Division label. That same week, we learned that Deliver to Mars developer Keoken Interactive had laid off its entire staff.
Elsewhere in the year, EA laid off approximately 670 employees across all divisions, resulting in the cancellation of Respawn’s Star Wars FPS game. PlayStation laid off 900 employees across Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla and more, closing a London studio in the process. Earlier in the day, Dawn developer Supermassive Games announced the layoff of 90 employees.
In late January, we learned that Embracer Group had canceled a new Deus Ex game in development at Eidos-Montreal, laying off 97 employees in the process. In January, Destroy All Humans remake developer Black Forest Games reportedly laid off 50 employees, and Microsoft announced layoffs of 1,900 across its Xbox, Activision Blizzard, and ZeniMax teams. Outriders studio People Can Fly laid off more than 30 employees in January, and League of Legends company Riot Games laid off 530 employees.
Lords of the Fallen publisher CI Games has laid off 10 percent of its staff, Unity will lay off 1,800 people by the end of March, and Twitch has laid off 500 employees.
We’ve learned that Discord has laid off 170 employees, layoffs at PTW, a support studio that works with companies like Blizzard and Capcom, and Steamworld build company, Thunderful Group, let go roughly 100 people. Dead by Daylight developer Behavior Interactive also reportedly laid off 45 people.
hearts Game Informer Staff are with everyone affected by layoffs or closings.
(Source: Polygon)