Until Dawn remake studio Ballistic Moon has reportedly “effectively closed”, amid claims only a handful of employees “at most” remain – none of them developers.
Ballistic Moon, which is based in the UK, confirmed a round of redundancies last year, saying it had made the “tough decision to significantly scale down our team to secure the future of our studio.” However, a new report by Insider Gaming claims the studio quietly made a second round of redundancies toward the end of last year.
According to the publication’s sources, roughly 40 employees were let go in October, with remaining staff kept on to provide post-launch support for Ballistic’s Until Dawn remake. However, it’s claimed these developers – equating to around 20 employees – lost their jobs in December, leaving only the studio’s founders and “possibly” a handful of employees “at most”. Reportedly, Ballistic’s entire PR, marketing, and development teams are now gone.
“People are sharing bugs they’ve found in the game to make the team aware,” a source told the publication, “but there is no one working on patch support for the game anymore.”
Insider Gaming claims the job losses follow unsuccessful attempts by Ballistic’s founders to pitch new projects, secure funding, and keep things “moving forward”. It’s also said discussions were had with Sony to secure funding for additional Until Dawn updates, possibly even another game, but they never reached fruition. Eurogamer has reached out to Ballistic for comment.
Word of additional redundancies at Ballistic comes as job cuts and studio closures continue across the games industry. February alone saw the likes of Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and Warner Bros. Games San Diego shut their doors, with layoffs also confirmed at Marvel Rivals’ US development team, The Callisto Protocol developer Striking Distance, and Surgeon Simulator studio Bossa Games. This week has also seen further job losses at PlayStation following the cancellation of multiple live-service games, and Still Wakes the Deep publisher Secret Mode confirmed a “small number” of layoffs, following its sale to an investment firm.