Palia developer lays off 35% of staff before life sim hits full release

Palia developer Singularity 6 has laid off 35 percent of its staff just months after the game entered early access.

Workers from the studio began sharing news of layoffs at the end of last week, which Singularity 6 then confirmed in a statement to IGN.

“Following Palia's release on Steam, we evaluated the support needed to deliver the highest-quality gameplay service for long-term stability,” reads the statement. “We made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce, which impacted around 35 percent of our talented and hardworking team members. We value their contributions and are committed to supporting them throughout this process, including severity, work-placement and career guidance assistance, and retainment of all company-provided development equipment.”

It continues: “This decision was not made lightly, and comes after careful consideration of our development and business needs to support Palia and its community. We remain committed to delivering passion in imagination, and maintaining the dedication and creativity that our community expects and deserves “We appreciate your understanding and support of our studio and affected team members.”

The free-to-play cozy life sim MMO was in development for five years ahead of its public PC beta in August last year. It then launched on Switch in December, before arriving on Steam last month (25th March) where it remains in early access.

It currently has 'Mixed' reviews on Steamlargely due to bugs and the high cost of cosmetics.

There's no official release date for the full release and it's unclear if that will be impacted by these layoffs.

Layoffs have wracked the games industry over the past year. Over the weekend, Larian Studios' publishing director Michael Douse called the mass redundancies “avoidable” and suggested “none of these companies are at risk of going bankrupt.”