Outriders Developer People Can Fly Lays Off 120 Staff As It Reduces Its Self-Published Projects

Developer People Can Fly has announced that it will reduce its self-published projects, resulting in 120 staff losing their jobs across the business.

In a statement posted to the company’s X account, CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski detailed a plan to scale back the studio’s self-published ventures, including suspending one project and restructuring the team working on another. “Today we made the difficult decision to reduce our self-publishing strategy by suspending Project Victoria, scaling down our team on Project Bifrost and restructuring some four supporting teams at People Can Fly.”

The fallout from this change in approach is the loss of 120 jobs across People Can Fly. The reasoning behind this move is one we’ve heard before, as the volatile nature of the gaming industry has forced People Can Fly’s hand. “This action became necessary as external market pressures persisted beyond our forecasts. The video game market is still evolving, and we have to adjust with where things are today.”

Important update from Sebastian Wojciechowski, CEO. pic.twitter.com/UeDV97zEoB

— People Can Fly (@PCFPeopleCanFly) December 10, 2024

People Can Fly has a history of creating high-octane action shooters, from Painkiller and Gears of War: Judgment through to Bulletstorm and, most recently, Outriders. While technically messy, Outriders was a blast, even during its rocky launch (I gave it an 8.5 and haven’t lived it down). The game received an expansion, titled Worldslayer, that introduced new abilities and an expanded story, but that seems to be all she wrote for the new IP.

It’s horrible news that I’m tired of reporting on. Ubisoft just announced the closure of XDefiant, resulting in almost 300 layoffs. Sony recently closed Firewalk Studios after the failure of Concord, leaving another 200-plus people without a job. And that’s all without mentioning the huge number of redundancies that came from Xbox’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which we likely haven’t seen the end of yet.

I’m yelling into a void, which won’t help anything, but I’m tired. The WellPlayed crew sends our thoughts to the affected People Can Fly staff, who now have to navigate the holidays after getting their marching orders.