Polish developerPeople Can FlyCEO Sebastian Wojciechowski announced today that the studio is laying off over 120 developers. The decision is part of a reduction for their self-publishing strategy, which includes suspending Project Victoria, reducing the size of their team on Project Bifrost, and restructuring other supporting teams.
“We are deeplysaddened by the fact that this situation means suspending or parting ways with more than 120 talented Aviators, colleagues who we enjoyed having on our team,“the studio said in a statementon its X, formerlyknown as Twitter, account.
Ubisoft Cuts 277 Jobs In San Francisco, Osaka, and Sydney
The victims this time are the entirety of the Osaka studio, the San Francisco production studio, and part of the Sydney production team.
“This action became necessary as external market pressures persisted beyond our forecasts. The video game market is still evolving, and we have to adjust with where things are today. We are redoubling our efforts with new work for hire engagements and focusing on the development of a single independent game.”
People Can Fly is just the latest studio to suffer layoffs.Ubisoft,Riot Games,Inflexion Games,Xbox,Deck Nine, andFirewalk Studioshave all either laid off staff or completely shut down this year. This problem hasplagued the gaming industry for the past few years.
Detailing the History of People Can Fly
Founded in 2002, People Can Fly saw its first success with the 2004 first-person shooterPainkiller. In 2007, they assisted in portingGears of Warto the PC and, alongside Epic Games, developedBulletstorm.
From 2013 to 2015, the studio was known as Epic Games Poland and developedGears of War: Judgmentfor the Xbox 360 and assisted with the development ofFortnite: Save the World(the PVE version of the game, not the hugely popular Battle Royale version we know today).
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Riot has announced yet another round of layoffs, after letting 530 employees go earlier this year.
After their partnership with Epic Games ended, the studio developed 2021’sOutriders, a third-person RPG shooter published by Square Enix. Even before its release,the studio was hard at work on two additional AAA projects. The game was met with average receivers and, despite promise, failed to find an audience. Since then, they’ve released two VR games: 2022’sGreen Hell VRand 2024’sBullestorm VR. Both were developed by Incuvo, a People Can Fly studio founded in 2021.
According to the company’sWikipedia page, a whopping six projects were in development before today’s announcement. One of them, Project Victoria, was suspended as of today. Project Maverick is an example of the work-for-hire engagement the company is providing. The studio, alongside Xbox Game Studios, announced the partnership in 2023 and has a $30-50 million budget. Another in development title, Project Gemini, is published by Square Enix and estimated to release in 2026.
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