Phoenix Labs, the developers behind Dauntless and Fae Farm, have laid off over 100 staff today as the team shifts its focus to its live service titles.
Reports of the layoffs circulated this morning from Polygon's Nicole Carpenter, with her sources indicating over 100 people lost their jobs today. The Fae Farm developer states that this decision came after "a long period of evaluating how to navigate our economic environment."
In a statement released by Carpenter (via Game Developer), Pheonix Labs states that the reasoning behind the layoffs is due to a shift to focus squarely on its "best-in-class live service titles," namely Dauntless and Fae Farm. The studio confirmed in their statement that all other work has been canceled at the studio, including reports of a game that was just weeks away from early access.
This isn't the first time in recent memory that the Dauntless studio has suffered layoffs, as the company laid off workers in May and December of 2023. What this means for the studio's future as a whole is unclear, especially as Game Developer notes these layoffs may have come at the behest of its parent company, Forte, a Blockchain platform that apparently bought the company a while back.
Our thoughts with all those affected by today's layoffs.
