Krafton has confirmed one other spherical of layoffs at Callisto Protocol developer Putting Distance Studios, however says it stays operational and that the cuts is not going to influence any initiatives presently within the works.
The layoffs have been first reported late final week by a number of former staff on LinkedIn: One stated “many of the devs have been laid off,” whereas one other reported “a number of layoffs” on the studio and a 3rd stated “many different nice colleagues” had been let go. Krafton, the dad or mum firm of Putting Distance Studios, declined to share particular numbers however confirmed in an announcement offered to PC Gamer that layoffs had been made.
“Putting Distance Studios has decreased the dimensions of its workforce to stay agile, which creates a sustainable setting for the studio at its present stage of growth,” a consultant stated. “The studio stays operational, and these modifications is not going to influence any deliberate ongoing help. No additional modifications are deliberate presently.”
That is the second spherical of layoffs at Putting Distance, which put 32 folks out of labor in August 2023, not lengthy after the discharge of The Callisto Protocol’s first and solely story growth. Regardless of its pedigree—Putting Distance was headed up by Lifeless Area government producer Glen Schofield—the survival horror recreation did not make a giant splash with gamers, and fell effectively wanting Krafton’s gross sales expectations. Schofield left Putting Distance in September 2023, just a little over a month after the primary spherical of layoffs.
Putting Distance’s follow-up recreation, the top-down shooter Redacted, landed with even much less of an influence, amassing an all-time peak concurrent participant rely on Steam of simply 169. The studio hasn’t introduced something new since then, however as famous by 80lv, a handful of staff have stated on LinkedIn that early work on one thing new has begun: Lead gameplay programmer George Coomber wrote that he is “main a workforce of 12 gameplay engineers to prototype an motion recreation in Unreal 5.”
The layoffs at Putting Distance observe latest cuts at Bossa Studios, Liquid Swords, Iron Galaxy, BioWare, and engine maker Unity, which themselves are merely the newest in an extended line of devastating layoffs stretching again to at the very least the start of 2023. Saying the cuts at Bossa, studio co-founder and co-CEO Henrique Olifiers stated the industry-wide bloodshed just isn’t a “section” however as an alternative the brand new regular: “A elementary transformation of the video games {industry}, a reshape of how video games are made and by what sorts of groups.”
