Until Dawn remake dev hit by bone-deep layoffs just a month before the game comes out
With exactly one month to go until the remake of the rather excellent PS4 horror game Until Dawn finally hits PC, its devs have been hit by layoffs. In a statement posted to LinkedIn, UK studio Ballistic Moon announced that it had made "the tough decision to significantly scale down our team to secure the future of our studio."
The number of staff affected has not been disclosed, but some former devs have taken to social media to announce their redundancies and seek new work (via Game Developer).
"After two exciting years working on the wonderful Until Dawn 2024 at Ballistic Moon I am unfortunately being made redundant as a Technical Designer," wrote former BM dev Harry Williams. "I have recently been informed that my current role as an Animator at Ballistic Moon is being made redundant. I worked on Until Dawn for more than a year with an amazing and talented team of individuals," wrote Kshitij Gupta. "As is currently the way of things," wrote former gameplay programmer Rudi Prentice, "I've unfortunately been made redundant at Ballistic Moon."
"As is currently the way of things" is right. As you're almost certainly aware, the last two years have been an absolute bloodbath for games industry devs, who have been hit by layoff after layoff at studio after studio. Developers whose jobs are stressful and unstable at the best of times have been existing under a sword of Damocles, living in fear about when—not if—they would lose their livelihoods.
At the beginning of this year, we published a chart showcasing the impact of over 16,000 layoffs that had buffeted the industry at that point. Were we to revisit that chart today, it would somehow paint an even bleaker picture. Aside from Ballistic Moon, we've seen major layoffs at Bungie, Relic, Intercept, and plenty of others: A mass sacrifice of talent on the altar of short-term thinking and short-term profits.
Until Dawn is set to launch on October 4, and is an Unreal Engine 5 remake of the 2015 PS4 game from Dark Pictures and The Quarry studio Supermassive Games. We're rather keen on trying it here at PCG—the original game was a rollicking good time that put Supermassive on the map back in the day, and its continued absence on PC has been a real shame. Apparently, though, that enthusiasm isn't enough to save BM's devs from the axe.
I've reached out to Ballistic Moon to get more info on the layoffs, and I'll update this piece if I hear back.