Highlights
- Deck Nine, developer of Life is Strange: True Colors, laid off 20% of staff due to “worsening marketing conditions.”
- Despite successful True Colors release, Deck Nine faces industry-wide layoffs for the second time in less than a year.
- Many studios experiencing layoffs, including PlayStation. Deck Nine news is latest blow in ongoing trend in gaming industry.
Deck Nine, the developer behind Life is Strange: True Colors, has announced it has laid off 20% of its staff amid “worsening marketing conditions.” The Life is Strange: True Colors developer isn’t alone, with many other studios making huge cutbacks at this moment in time.
Released in 2021, Life is Strange: True Colors was seen as a return to form for the franchise, after the second iteration fell short of many fans’ expectations. Deck Nine had worked on the franchise before, having been in charge of the prequel to the original game: Life is Strange: Before the Storm. Now fully in charge of the series after Don’t Nod moved on to other projects, Deck Nine brought some of the hardest choices found in Life is Strange games, and told an emotionally resonant story with a cool new power. It’s been some time since then though, and the industry is in a totally different shape from when Life is Strange: True Colors was released.
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Deck Nine Games confirmed the news on Twitter, blaming “worsening market conditions” for the decision to lay off 20% of the studio’s staff, while encouraging any studios to hire the “amazing, talented, and awesome developers.” Earlier, Baldur’s Gate 3 studio Larian urged laid-off developers to apply, and hopefully, other companies share the same attitude during what is an incredibly difficult period for the industry.
Life is Strange: True Colors Developer Lays Off 20% of its Workforce
However, this round of layoffs is not the first for the company. In May 2023, Deck Nine Games laid off 30 staff before the release of The Expanse: The Telltale Series, which it co-developed alongside Telltale Games. This makes it a brutal second round of layoffs in less than a 12-month period. Despite the strong performance of Life is Strange: True Colors back in 2021, it hasn’t been enough to exempt the company from this industry-wide issue a few years later. With this news in mind, it’ll be interesting to see how the future of the Life is Strange franchise pans out, with less staff to work on whatever comes next.
It’s a sorry state of affairs in the games industry right now. News of more layoffs is arriving daily, and it seems like no studio is escaping unscathed at the moment. Recently, news broke of huge layoffs at PlayStation, which even resulted in the entire London studio shutting down, as well as the cancelation of an unannounced Twisted Metal reboot. It’s been brutal and nonstop, and the Deck Nine news is just the latest blow in a string of terrible announcements in this regard. With no sign of it stopping any time soon, all there’s left to do is hope that it subsides, and these talented individuals can find new homes soon enough.
Life Is Strange: True Colors
Life is Strange: True Colors is the third release in the Life is Strange universe and follows a young woman named Alex Chen. Alex has the unique ability to sense and feel the emotions of others, which she uses to help her solve problems and uncover more information about her own traumatic past.
- Released
- December 7, 2021
- Genre(s)
- Adventure
