People Can Fly and Black Forest Games hit by layoffs, according to sources and leaked emails

rockpapershotgun.com:

Room for another mass layoff post, before we end the day? This one is actually two separate stories but in a bid to conserve resources and make our frontpage slightly less depressing to read, I am going to roll them together. Black Forest Games, the Embracer-owned creators of the Destroy All Humans! Remake, are reportedly cutting 50% of their workforce - around 50-60 people. Outriders developers People Can Fly, meanwhile, have laid off 30 developers who were working on an unannounced Square Enix game.

Both of those reports are from Kotaku, which has decided to put all this year's layoffs on a single feed - a truly grisly cousin of our own The Maw. According to one of the site's sources, Black Forest Games announced the job losses to staff yesterday. It's not clear who exactly is leaving, but the studio's creative directors and most "if not all" of its managers are expected to survive the cuts, with more details following next week. Embracer acquired Black Forest by way of operating group THQ Nordic in 2017. The studio are currently working on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin.

The cuts presumably form part of Embracer's on-going "restructuring" from last year, as the Swedish conglomerate strive to reduce their debts after a seemingly endless run of studio acquisitions over the past few years. Embracer are also reportedly taking the axe to ELEX and Gothic developers Piranha Bytes, though Piranha have valiantly asked fans not to "write us off" just yet.

As for People Can Fly, Kotaku has gotten hold of an internal email from development director Adam Alker in which he says that cuts are necessary due to budget limitations and the shrinking scope of the aforesaid Square Enix game, Project Gemini, which will now be shorter than planned with a smaller roster of enemies. Apart from the 30 people who are being laid off, 20 other members of the Gemini team have reportedly been relocated to other projects within the studio.

"To those individuals