Life is Strange developers Don't Nod hit with more layoffs

Following a tumultuous twelvemonth for workers astatine the French studio

French workplace Don't Nod person laid disconnected workers crossed aggregate departments. The afloat fig is unconfirmed, but aggregate affected unit person posted astir their departures connected LinkedIn, including Lost Records: Bloom & Rage main cinematic creator Mary Pouliot, method creator Laurent Dufrense, and QA pb Sandra Cormier.

It's been a rocky twelvemonth oregon truthful for Don't Nod's staff. Last September, the workplace paused 2 unannounced games and said they're altering others, besides unannounced, to beryllium much appealing to a "wider audience", pursuing warnings astir an 11% diminution successful operating gross for the archetypal fractional of 2024. Chairman and CEO Oskar Guilbert attributed this to (the excellent) Jusant and Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden performing "well beneath expectations" commercially.

Back successful February of the aforesaid year, French national STJV alleged mismanagement astatine Don't Nod, including "contradictory" directions, shifting deadlines, and "no semipermanent vision" for unit payment (cheers, Eurogamer). Following September's statements from Guilbert, the STJV published different connection of their own, accusing Don't Nod of creating "an ambiance of utmost violence” with planned layoffs and mistreatment of staff.

(I fig it's worthy thing here, re: the possibly contentious usage of the word "violence" that a.) French works otherwise to English and b.) the harm caused by utmost accent brought astir from occupation precarity tin evidently beryllium genuinely physically harmful. Living nether the protective shroud of being 1 grade of removal and deniability from the astir literal explanation of unit is however immoderate of the worst radical connected the satellite proceed to beryllium allowed to amusement their horrible small faces successful public, aft all.)

Sorry astir that, had little commie flush. Must beryllium the weather. Ahem. "Jusant’s developers were near successful the acheronian astir their future, galore without immoderate enactment to do, for implicit 2 months", said the STJV astatine the time, saying that astir 29% of the Paris studio's workforce could beryllium astatine hazard of losing their jobs. This coincided with different connection from Guilbert saying Don't Nod would beryllium undergoing a "reorganisation project". Via an IGN report, Don't Nod announced they were expecting to laic disconnected employees astatine this time.

The numbers get a small spot hard to way from that point. In a strategy papers from April of this year, Don't Nod said that "ultimately, 59 occupation cuts are planned, including 12 departures that person not been replaced since the announcement". Last month, STJV announced that they'd "secured 23 voluntary redundancies for occupation categories not threatened by the plan, successful bid to prevention arsenic galore colleagues from being fired", arsenic good arsenic securing severance and onslaught pay. "Instead of the 69 layoffs initially planned, determination were 46 voluntary departures and 1 layoff," STJV constitute (Thanks, Gameranx).

Which brings america to the existent circular of layoffs. The STJV person yet to remark publicly. I've reached retired to them, arsenic good arsenic Don't Nod to corroborate the fig of layoffs astatine the studio, and I'll update this if and erstwhile I know. Best of luck to each affected. Again, Jusant was bloody brilliant.