Yesterday, Warframe developer Digital Extremes became the latest company hit by layoffs. As the company decided to cease work on external projects, including publishing, this means changes for Wayfinder. Developer Airship Syndicate now has full ownership and control over Wayfinder, and they are committing to moving forward with development.
Digital Extremes originally published and supported Wayfinder in development, everything now comes down to developer Airship Syndicate. The team released some statements on the changes, and it mostly came down to committing to continued development and working to grow Wayfinder.
“We thank Digital Extremes for helping jumpstart Wayfinder and getting us to this point in our journey.
Airship Syndicate owns the Wayfinder IP, and we have no plans to stop developing the game now. We look forward to continuing to grow the game alongside our players as we take on operations.
The game has a long way to go in Early Access, but with belief from our players and our dedicated Airship crew, we can - and will! - get there.”
Airship Syndicate released Wayfinder into Early Access and got off to a bumpy start. Quickly making some changes, the team was responsive to feedback and continued releasing new content and improvements. Recently releasing The Reaver King update, the Wayfinder team announced their plans to release out of Early Access into a free to play model in 2024. We’ll have to see if any of these changes to publishing and operations impacts that schedule.
That is correct! All operations of the game will be handled by Airship Syndicate and we have no plans of stopping or slowing down. Look for our next patch as early as next week!
— Wayfinder (@playwayfinder) November 10, 2023
Digital Extremes confirmed the layoffs and the shifts in a post on LinkedIn, saying “We have made the very difficult decision to cease operations of our External Projects division - which has seen us say goodbye to over 30 valued colleagues,” later adding that they would be focusing entirely on in-house development. “Our belief is for us to achieve our goals for Warframe and eventually Soulframe, we need to be able to rally 100% behind in-house products and development,” read the statement from HR Director Heidi Flynn.
