2023 was a bad year for the gaming industry and the developers and the start of 2024 was even worse. The layoffs followed one another, with many companies laying off dozens and hundreds of employees, sometimes even closing entire development teams.
This is also why it's been a little refreshing lately to be able to report some slightly more positive news, related to new teams recently born and studios that are breaking away from companies that just don't seem to be able to adequately manage the multitude of teams at their disposal.
In case you missed them, here's a small summary of some more recent key events.
The new teams
Let's talk for example about emptyvessel, created by a group of veterans from development studios Naughty Dog, id Software and Activision. This new group of developers is making a new AAA game based on Unreal Engine 5. It will be an immersive shooter, inspired by “films, graphic novels and games set in dystopian sci-fi worlds”.
Then there is Giant Skull, a team led by none other than Stig Asmussen, best known as director of God of War 3 and Star Wars Jedi. In this case, we know they'll make a AAA-level single-player action-adventure game.
Still. Saber Interactive (along with DIGIC, Fractured Byte, Mad Head Games, New World Interactive, Nimble Giant Entertainment, Sandbox Strategies, Slipgate Ironworks and 3D Realms) is now separating from Embracer, which is increasingly in financial difficulty. Additionally, 4A Games and Zen Studios could be sold to Saber Interactive, but without the rights to Metro.
In the midst of all this, still at Embracer, it would seem that Gearbox Software (the Borderlands team) is also ready to leave the company a few years after being purchased.
Obviously these are just the beginning and we will have to see if the various teams will be able to manage themselves, will have solid projects, but – again – it is refreshing at this moment to see a reaction and the birth of new teams, which remind us that the gaming market is not at all dead as some fear and that the heart of this industry – the individual developers – are still driven by the desire to create, get involved and take risks with new projects.
Of course, there are also many developers who find themselves in a difficult time after being fired and they should not be forgottenbut the hope is that for them too there will be a new starting point, as for the teams and people mentioned above.
This is an editorial written by a member of the editorial team and is not necessarily representative of the editorial line of Multiplayer.it.
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