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The indie studio behind last year's incredible Saltsea Chronicles has halted production entirely, citing difficulty securing funding.

Die Gute Fabrik is also known for 2019's Mutazione and the local multiplayer compilation Sportfriends from 2014.

The studio halted production last week on 19th February, it revealed today, and said it made the news public to help its members find roles elsewhere.

"The publishing and investment scene is so tough for companies and projects of our scale right now," Die Gute Fabrik said in its statement. The studio will continue to seek funding, it said, and should it secure funding in future it may resume production.

Die Gute Fabrik's games will remain on sale, which the company said "continues to be the best way to support us" on X (née Twitter). Founder Nils Deneken will take over leadership of the studio while it seeks funding, though he and CEO Hannah Nicklin are also looking for new roles.

If you've yet to try some of Die Gute Fabrik's games, there's perhaps no better time to support the studio. Our Donlan enjoyed Mutazione, an adventure game which combines gardening with its narrative. In his Mutazione review, he called the game a "kind and gentle adventure that's filled with vivid life".

Donlan also enjoyed Saltsea Chronicles, an adventure game set in a flooded, post-apocalyptic world where an ensemble of crew members must find their ship's captain. Donlan awarded it five stars in his Saltsea Chronicles review and praised the subtlety of choices the game asks you to make in the lead up to a "truly devastating climax".

Polish developer Reikon Games has reportedly dismissed a significant portion of its workforce.

Sources told GamesIndustry.biz that around 70 people have been laid off, while former producer Rafał Basaj claimed it was around 60 people via a Threads post.

Others told Kotaku that an estimated 56% of the company's employees have been affected.

The layoffs were announced to staff on January 23, 2024, with multiple former employees since posting on LinkedIn and social media platforms that they are looking for work.

GamesIndustry.biz reached out to Reikon Games for confirmation and comment, but has not received a response at the time of writing.

Reikon is best known for 2017 cyberpunk shooter Ruiner, which was published by Devolver Digital.

Microsoft is laying off 1900 people across the video game teams, including Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and Xbox, equating to approximately eight percent of its gaming workforce.

In an internal email seen by The Verge, Microsoft's gaming head Phil Spencer called this a "painful decision".

"It's been a little over three months since the Activision, Blizzard, and King teams joined Microsoft," Spencer wrote in his email to staff. "As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business. Together, we've set priorities, identified areas of overlap, and ensured that we're all aligned on the best opportunities for growth.

"As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team. The Gaming Leadership Team and I are committed to navigating this process as thoughtfully as possible.

"The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and the Xbox teams, and they should be proud of everything they've accomplished here. We are grateful for all of the creativity, passion and dedication they have brought to our games, our players and our colleagues. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted during the transition, including severance benefits informed by local employment laws. Those whose roles will be impacted will be notified, and we ask that you please treat your departing colleagues with the respect and compassion that is consistent with our values.

"Looking ahead, we'll continue to invest in areas that will grow our business and support our strategy of bringing more games to more players around the world. Although this is a difficult moment for our team, I'm as confident as ever in your ability to create and nurture the games, stories and worlds that bring players together."

The layoffs follow Microsoft's $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard last year, and $7.5bn acquisition of Zenimax in 2021.

It has also been announced that Blizzard president Mike Ybarra is departing Microsoft, along with Blizzard's chief design officer Allen Adham.

Sharing the news on X, Ybarra thanked those at Blizzard, calling today an "incredibly hard day".

"To all of those impacted today - I am always available to you and understand how challenging today’s news is. My heart is with each one of you," he wrote.

The execs' departures mark the end of Blizzard's previously announced survival game, which has now been cancelled.

This project was being helmed by ex-Far Cry boss Dan Hay. When this game was first announced in 2022, Blizzard said it would be set in a "whole new universe".

"Blizzard is embarking on our next quest," the company wrote at the time. "We are going on a journey to a whole new universe, home to a brand-new survival game for PC and console."

This universe is "a place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived", Blizzard added. "A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored."

You can see its concept art below, showing two young figures happening upon a passage that leads away from their dreary urban home to a verdant fantasy world.

Last October, Microsoft announced a reorganisation of its Xbox leadership team, which saw Sarah Bond’s role expanded to overseeing a number of internal teams under a new title of President of Xbox. Matt Booty, previously known as Head of Xbox Game Studios, received the new job title of President, Game Content and Studios. This reorganisation followed the retirement of Bethesda exec Pete Hines.

Just last week, GDC published its 2024 State of the Game Industry report. Here, it said 35 percent of game developers had been impacted by layoffs in the last 12 months. Additionally, half of those surveyed said they are concerned more job cuts are on the way.

This year has already seen multiple companies announce layoffs, including League of Legends developer Riot Games. Earlier this month, the company revealed it was laying off 530 employees, equating to roughly 11 percent of its total global workforce. Others affected this year include Black Forest Games, Unity, Behaviour Interactive and Lords of the Fallen publisher CI Games.

This story is developing.

Obsidian Entertainment has revealed its first-person RPG Avowed is set to release this autumn.

The launch window was announced during tonight's Xbox Developer Direct livestream, along with a short look at combat, quests, and the game's environments.

Players will be able to quickly switch between playstyles using custom loadouts, meaning you can quickly switch from a melee build to a ranged magic build in the middle of combat.

We also got a look at a sidequest found in a settlement called Shatterskarp, the third region players will explore during the game. You come across a group of dead soldiers and one of their allies called Nauki, who you can pass blame onto for the others' deaths or tell him it wasn't his fault.

Game director Carrie Patel said the studio embraces "moral nuance and grey areas", and the world will reflect the consequences of the choices players made during this sidequest and more.

Autumn 2024 is a more solid estimate of Avowed's release date, which was previously only confirmed as this year. Avowed is one we're excited for, as we're eager to see Obsidian's first big budget game under Microsoft, and it made our list of our most anticipated games of 2024.

UK developer Bossa Studios has laid off around one third of its staff, GamesIndustry.biz has learned.

Sources shared a list of 19 people that were affected by the redundancies, mostly in QA and production roles as well as non-UK employees.

Bossa Studios has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that it did dismiss a number of staff at the end of 2023, and that 40 people remain in the studio.

In a statement, co-founder Henrique Olifiers told us the layoffs were due to a "perfect storm of events," including the number of AAA games launching after September that took away the focus from AA and indie games, increasing operational costs, and delayed funding decisions across the industry for new titles.

He said the above factors and more created a "difficult situation we, as developers, are struggling to brave."

"Resulting from this blue moon situation, we had to make the difficult decision to reshape the studio to reflect the position we find ourselves in at the end of this year, focusing all our efforts now on Lost Skies. This means we find ourselves in the heartbreaking position of having to let roughly one third of the studio go – amongst them, some of our closest colleagues.

"While we are doing our utmost to support them, we would appreciate any help our industry peers can give in spreading the word about these great people – or even better, hiring them as part of your team. You'll be hard-pressed to find a better game development professional than one of these Bossians, whom we'll vouch for without hesitation.

"We often say that making games is hard, but nothing is harder than seeing people you admire being let go. Ultimately, we tried our very best to avoid being in this position, and we're truly sorry for where we have landed."

2023 was an incredibly tough year for the games industry when it comes to layoffs, with some estimates suggesting more than 10,000 people around the world lost their jobs in the past year.

In our annual predictions feature, analysts have warned that more redundancies are to be expected in 2024.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/3014161

Awesomenauts developer Ronimo Games has reportedly filed for bankruptcy.

As reported by Game Developer, quoting Dutch outlet Emerce, the Utrecht-based studio reportedly filed for bankruptcy on August 22 at the Central Netherlands Court.

An employee confirmed the bankruptcy on the developer's Discord server.

"We got hit by a series of unfortunate events while working on our last project, and weren't able to recover despite our best efforts," they wrote.

"What this means for Awesomenauts (and Blightbound) multiplayer is as of yet uncertain: the process is still ongoing, and it all depends on where it ends up. For what it's worth, myself and others at Ronimo would love to see both games live for a while longer."

GamesIndustry.biz reached out to Ronimo Games for clarification.

Former employee and independent developer Jeroen D. Stout, who worked as a programmer on Blightbound, also responded to the news on X (formerly known as Twitter).

"I will miss all the good people with whom I worked for the last four years," Stout wrote. "My work the last few months was super interesting and we were getting somewhere good, so it's unfortunate it ended here."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/2944272

Smaller subscription deals and the underperformance of certain titles have had a severe impact on Devolver and TinyBuild, says stockbroking firm Goodbody.

Both companies floated at the peak of the games business in 2021 and have seen their share prices plummet over the past two years. Devolver has seen its share price drop 92% since its peak in January 2022, while TinyBuild's has fallen 95%

"We have seen from Devolver and TinyBuild that subscription is under pressure at the moment," says Patrick O'Donnell, technology and video gaming analyst at Goodbody.

"The cheques coming from Sony and Microsoft are just not as big as they were. And that creates problems if you're concentrated on that side of the market.

"TinyBuild, of all of them, was most exposed. Devolver was exposed, but not quite as much."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/2277558

On PC, the game is 139.84 GB. On console, it's 100.19 GB for Standard or 117.07 GB for the Premium Edition