The studio behind Until Dawn’s remake has closed down… sort of

It’s the smell of more layoffs, redundancies, and closures. Ballistic Moon, the studio behind the Until Dawn remake, is now “effectively closed“. This comes from multiple sources who spoke to Insider Gaming about the situation. Back in September of last year, the company publically revealed that they let go of roughly 40 employees. Of the staff that remained, they’re only kept around to support Until Dawn post-launch. However, according to Insider Gaming, in December they quietly laid off roughly 20 more developers.

But now? Sources who spoke to Insider Gaming said that “no employees in public relations, marketing, or development” are left. The only ones sticking around are the founders of the studio and “possibly a handful of employees at most“. This is a real shame, but it’s not like news about layoffs and closures is anything new. Back in February, BioWare continued the trend, laying off staff to “refocus” on the newest Mass Effect game that is yet to come out. Also in February, Toast Interactive, an Australian VR studio, closed its doors too. It still sucks to hear regardless.

When it comes to Until Dawn, there most likely won’t be any more future patches. As one of the sources mentioned, players are “sharing bugs they’ve found in the game to make the team aware“. But since there’s no one working on patch support, the bugs will just have to live in the game. While asking a source on whether Sony would help with future updates, it was “discussed but never came to fruition“. The owners have attempted to try to keep their head above water by “actively looking for funding and pitching projects“. However, in the end, it just seems that they couldn’t secure both the funding or a publisher for their projects.

Currently, there isn’t an official statement from Ballistic Moon about the studio and the layoffs. And realistically, it’s still an active company… it just isn’t working on any new projects or creating patches for its games. Hopefully, Sony can give the studio a hand or another publisher pulls it out of the rubble. But it seems from all of this, Ballistic Moon is… well, “effectively closed“. This won’t be the last we hear about layoffs in the gaming sphere, unfortunately. But here’s hoping that those laid off can jump back onto their feet!