Dauntless and Fae Farm developer Phoenix Labs has laid off “a majority” of its employees one month after releasing a poorly-received replace to the previous title as a part of its launch on Steam.
The corporate introduced the transfer in a submit on LinkedIn, saying that right now is “one other troublesome day” for the studio. It added that the choice was a part of “unlucky however essential adjustments to [its] operations.”
“We acknowledge and deeply respect the contributions of each particular person impacted,” the assertion continues. “Their expertise, dedication, and creativity have left an indelible mark on our firm and our video games.” It added that it might be sharing “extra particulars” within the weeks forward about what these departures imply for Fae Farm and Dauntless, its two launched video games. Dauntless is a free-to-play stay service recreation, whereas Fae Farm is a premium recreation with on-line multiplayer.
At the moment’s layoffs come a couple of months after Sport Developer reported on turmoil on the studio after a 2023 acquisition by blockchain agency Forte Labs. Former Phoenix Labs workers advised us that the then-new mum or dad firm instituted a tradition of strict secrecy, reducing off communication between groups and going as far as to seemingly conceal its possession of the developer from potential workers.
Shortly after our reporting, Phoenix Labs launched its flagship monster-hunting recreation Dauntless on Steam, solely to be criticized by gamers for its new in-app monetization design and erasing earlier development with the brand new “Awakening” replace. The sport nonetheless has an “Overwhelmingly Detrimental” variety of opinions on Steam.
Poor reception of this replace might have dented the corporate’s fortunes on the finish of 2024, making right now’s layoffs extra doubtless. In response to SteamDB, the variety of concurrent gamers spiked briefly at about 3,200 when it first launched on Steam, but it surely steeply declined within the days after. At the moment the sport is barely averaging between 130-160 CCU on a given day.
Phoenix Labs’ Dauntless was a success when it first launched—what modified?
When Dauntless first launched in 2019, the sport was a bona fide hit, choosing up 500,000 gamers after launching throughout the Epic Sport Retailer, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. The sport—funded and revealed initially by Epic Video games—was an early adopter of cross-platform gameplay. This was solely two years after Epic Video games “accidently” activated cross-platform performance in its flagship battle royale recreation Fortnite, which was adopted by public campaigning by CEO Tim Sweeney for platforms like Xbox and PlayStation to decrease the multiplayer partitions between platforms.
At the moment, cross-play multiplayer is a widely-supported characteristic for a lot of video games and is not a singular promoting level.
Phoenix Labs continued assist for Dauntless but in addition spun up different groups to work on video games like fairy-farming simulator Fae Farm and the now-cancelled dragon-themed crafting survival recreation codenamed “Venture Dragon,” together with different video games finally cancelled in 2024. Many of those tasks have been spun up beneath then-parent firm Singaporean writer Garena (a subsidiary of Sea Ltd), which divested from Phoenix Labs in 2023.
The corporate let go over 160 workers earlier than this large layoff, within the months because the acquisition by Forte Labs. In that point, its new proprietor reportedly pressed builders to draft strategies for integrating blockchain expertise in its video games for the needs of shopping for and promoting, and buying and selling in-game items, in keeping with former workers who spoke with Sport Developer. No blockchain video games or recreation mechanics have been publicly revealed by Phoenix Labs.
Sport Developer has reached out to Phoenix Labs for remark and can replace this story when a response is issued.
