And it goes on and on. Three studios have announced layoffs and ongoing projects have also been discontinued. The crisis in the industry is still not over.
Well, the red pencil is circling again and at several studios. Let’s start with Sharkmob, the developer of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt. The studio is laying off a significant number of employees at the British branch Sharkmob London, although it is currently unclear how many employees will be affected.
The reason for the layoffs is apparently that development of a previously unannounced game was stopped. Sharkmob London was only founded in 2020 after the headquarters in Malmö, where Exoborne is currently being worked on, was taken over by Tencent in 2019.
A statement from studio management said: “As you know, our industry is facing challenges, which means we need to adapt to focus on the right opportunities as a company. Our team in London has been working on an unannounced project for some time game and we are now sad to announce that this project has been canceled. The decision to cancel the game unfortunately means we will have to reduce the number of people we can support in the London studio. This is an incredibly difficult one Time and our focus is to provide support and guidance to those potentially affected.”
Hi-Rez Studios, the developers of Smite and its successor, are also facing uncomfortable times. The company wants to concentrate fully on Smite 2 and is planning major restructuring, according to company boss Stewert Chisam announced via Twitter
The development of Smite 2 should not be affected by this: “It is noteworthy that the core development team currently working on Smite 2 is still a significant size after these changes: it is larger than the Smite 1 team during the largest Part of its life cycle (except for a period during and shortly after the pandemic) was,” says Chisam. “The team working on gods and game features (as opposed to skins and monetization/progression/system features) is larger than the SMITE 1 team ever was for such features.”
Third in the group is XR Games, developer of Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded and other VR titles. Nothing is set in iron there yet, but at least 72 jobs are expected to be eliminated as part of restructuring. Microsoft has also announced that it is discontinuing the Hololens project, which may lead to layoffs there too. This means that around 13,000 employees in the industry have already been thrown out on the streets this year.
After rumors in advance, the MOBA sequel Smite 2 has actually been officially announced.
