The Lords of the Fallen publisher CI Games has recently announced that 10% of its entire team has been laid off. Game industry layoffs were among the biggest game news stories of 2023, and this unfortunate trend seems to be continuing into 2024.
CI Games’ latest release was Lords of the Fallen, a new entry in the Soulslike franchise that started in 2014. Despite gaining somewhat mixed reviews, Lords of the Fallen was a big hit, selling over one million copies in only 10 days. As a comparison, the previous iteration of the franchise took seven months to achieve 900,000 units sold. However, despite this financial success, CI Games is laying off employees.
The Lords of the Fallen publisher has dismissed around 10% of its staff, according to GI.biz. The layoffs are rumored to have affected the majority of the company’s marketing department. CI Games CEO Marek Tymiński commented on the event, saying that “to preserve business strength and stability, CI Games has made the tough but necessary decision to implement a targeted round of redundancies”.
It's unclear how this round of layoffs will affect the development of the next projects made by CI Games. Right now, CI Games is reportedly developing a sequel for Lords of the Fallen, which could be released around 2026, if recent leaks are correct.
The layoffs made by the Lords of the Fallen publisher mark the continuation of one of the most unfortunate trends in the gaming industry in recent times. Last year, several major companies, like BioWare, Take-Two Interactive, CD Projekt Red, ByteDance, and Embracer Group, together laid off thousands of employees.
CI Games is not even the first company to lay off employees this year. Last week, Unity announced plans to reduce its staff by 25%, dismissing around 1,800 employees, which will significantly impact its operations. Before that, Unity laid off over 1,100 people between 2022 and 2023. Considering these events, it’s not unlikely that gamers will continue to see more developers being laid off as 2024 continues.
