Digital Extremes, the company behind popular looter-shooter Warframe, is the latest gaming studio forced into staff cuts with at least 20 employees let go earlier today.
This information comes from sources directly affected by the layoffs, who claim the company will no longer publish other developer’s titles—including Airship Syndicate’s Wayfinder—so it can focus on its own content.
The layoffs mostly affected staff within teams working on external projects and publishing, notably those involved with Wayfinder, according to a Nov. 9 report by Polygon. This event is part of a larger trend of job cuts across the video game industry, with hundreds of layoffs occurring in recent weeks, including nearly 100 at Ubisoft and others at Bungie and Epic Games.
Digital Extremes plans to hand over full ownership of Wayfinder to Airship Syndicate in the coming months. Airship Syndicate promised to continue its development of Wayfinder and thanked Digital Extremes for their support in kick-starting the title and bringing it to where it is now. The company admitted there’s still a massive journey ahead in early access, but is confident it will pan out well.
Despite Airship Syndicate’s optimism, the game has not received favorable feedback so far. Dot Esports’ own Tom Foley dedicated 20 hours to the game and, while he was impressed by its stunning visuals and combat system, he criticized it for being overly repetitive and “grindy.” He also pointed out several other problems, including bugs, glitches, and lengthy wait times.
Tom’s views are shared by others. The Steam reviews for Wayfinder are mixed, with 54 percent leaning towards negative. Players are complaining about the same things—they don’t like how repetitive the gameplay is and are frustrated with how poorly the servers run. They believe the game needs a lot of improvement.
Airship Syndicate is set on making these improvements, but it will be a tough job now that Digital Extremes is no longer around to assist them.
