Humble Games ‘restructure’ puts several console updates ‘in limbo’

polygon.com:

Just days after Squid Shock Studios released Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus on July 17, its publisher, Humble Games, announced on July 23 it was laying off 36 staff members and thus throwing a hitch into the game’s critical launch period. Humble Games, which also published lauded indie games like Coral Island, Slay the Spire, and Unpacking, described the changes as restructuring in official statements, but laid-off staff members said on social media and on LinkedIn that there are no employees left. The Humble Games name has been handed over to third-party consultancy The Powell Group, Aftermath reported. The shake-up left some developers questioning the impact on their games — and, specifically, the impact on the process to update their games on consoles.

Developer Stairway Games posted to its X account on July 25, two days after the Humble Games’ restructuring announcement, that it’s offering Nintendo Switch players a chance to switch over to the Steam version of its popular life sim, Coral Island, without paying for the game again. Stairway Games said in its post it’s worried about its ability to port its game to Nintendo Switch, something its Kickstarter backers were promised, without assistance from Humble Games. However, Humble Games representative Michael Brown told Polygon that “nothing has changed and no developers have had to change their porting plans; every project is moving ahead.”

Asked for clarification on why studios have publicly claimed to be unable to update console ports, Brown said, “Some studios are still in the process of getting synced up with their new points of contact and all their concerns are currently being addressed and any issues resolved as quickly as time allows.”

For developers, the process can’t move fast enough. “For example, we have an upcoming hotfix for the 1.1 update nearing release for Steam,” the Stairway post reads. “We have no idea how to get this update out to other platform players as we don’t have the backend permission on