The Polish development company People Can Fly is going through a difficult time. The studio has just announced the layoff of more than 120 employees, a decision motivated by “ persistent external market pressures beyond their forecasts ».
Sebastian Wojciechowski, CEO of the studio, explained in a statement published on that this restructuring results from a change of strategy in the self-publishing of their games. As a reminder, People Can Fly is the origin of legendary titles such as Gears of War: Judgment, Outriders or even Bulletstorm.
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We learned today that Project Victoria is suspended, the team working on Project Bifrost is reduced, and several support teams are restructured. “ The video game market continues to evolve, and we must adapt to current reality », and déclaré Wojciechowski. « We are increasing our efforts to secure new subcontracting contracts while focusing on the development of a single independent game ».
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People Can Fly mass layoffs for the second time in 2024
This wave of layoffs is not not the first for People Can Fly in 2024. In January, the studio had already had to separate from more than 30 people working on Project Gemini. The studio, which counted more than 700 employeesultimately saw its workforce considerably reduced.
The Victoria and Bifrost projects, never publicly revealed, had been in development for at least two years. The studio planned to self-publish them after the end of its partnership with Take-Two Interactive in 2022. This year also saw the termination of Project Dagger, a project developed since 2020 with Take-Two.
The timing of these layoffs, two weeks before Christmaswill probably be hard to take for the employees concerned, and adds to a long list of restructurings in the video game industry. In recent weeks, Ubisoft, Torn Banner, Thunderful and several other studios have also made workforce reductions. In short, the sector is truly in crisis, and even the potential takeover of Ubisoft is for the moment suspended after differences among shareholders over the future of the studio.
