{"id":1116980,"date":"2026-07-28T23:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1116980\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T23:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:26:12","slug":"newly-independent-double-fine-has-to-lay-off-23-devs-to-ensure-survival-of-the-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1116980\/","title":{"rendered":"Newly Independent Double Fine Has to Lay Off 23 Devs to Ensure Survival of the Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The people we are losing were all important,&#8221; Schafer continued. &#8220;They all made an impact on our games and culture, and they will be missed.&#8221; The studio is now working with those impacted to support them the best it can.<\/p>\n<p>Double Fine was one of five first-party Xbox studios impacted by Microsoft&#8217;s cuts and layoffs at the start of this month. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/south_of_midnight\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South of Midnight<\/a> developer Compulsion Games joined it in returning to independence, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps4\/hellblade_senuas_sacrifice\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hellblade<\/a> studio Ninja Theory and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/state_of_decay_3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">State of Decay 3<\/a> team Undead Labs were sold to currently unknown buyers.<\/p>\n<p>Arkane Studios is also under consultation to &#8220;review [its] strategic options&#8221;, though an update on what&#8217;s been happening since the news went public hasn&#8217;t been provided. 1,600 Microsoft employees lost their jobs earlier in July, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/news\/2026\/07\/i-know-this-is-painful-xbox-confirms-3200-job-losses-in-industry-bloodbath\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">another wave of 1,600 job losses will follow<\/a> before July 2027.<\/p>\n<p>How do you react to this news? Let us know in the comments below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text source\">[source <a class=\"external\" title=\"External Link: https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/doublefine.com\/post\/3mrq3vfqkf22s\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/doublefine.com\/post\/3mrq3vfqkf22s\" target=\"_blank\">bsky.app<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;The people we are losing were all important,&#8221; Schafer continued. &#8220;They all made an impact on our games&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1116981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[166400,806,53,16,15],"class_list":["post-1116980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-double-fine","tag-industry","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117000194183625096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1116980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1116981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1116980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1116980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1116980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}