Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic is shedding over a dozen employees

Playtonic, the creators of Yooka-Laylee, is shedding a few of its employees, the developer and writer announced on social media. The publish would not point out what number of members of Playtonic shall be effected, however does credit score the layoffs to the corporate’s wrestle with “a interval of profound change in how video games are created and funded.”

Based on a LinkedIn post shared by Playtonic model supervisor Anni Valkama, the layoffs embrace employees members who labored in manufacturing, numerous artwork departments, sport design, narrative design and UI/UX design. Playtonic solely lists round 50 employees members on LinkedIn, however given the studios progress right into a writer and its upcoming launch of Yooka-Replaylee, its doable the precise group is a bit bigger.

Whereas Playtonic doubtless is not protected from the issues of funding and promoting video games that different builders have, hiring up for a brand new mission like Yooka-Replaylee after which laying these new hires off earlier than the sport is launched is a reasonably widespread follow. There is no strategy to know if that is the case right here with out extra data, nevertheless it’s value stating.

Yooka-Laylee was pitched as a non secular sequel to Banjo-Kazooie and different character-focused action-platformers when it debuted on Kickstarter in 2015, maybe unsurprising provided that Playtonic was based by former builders from Uncommon, the creators of Banjo-Kazooie and newer hits like Sea of Thieves. Actually, lots of the video games Playtonic has revealed below its “Playtonic Buddies” publishing label fall in that Uncommon candy spot, whether or not its the lovable action-adventure sport Lil Gator Recreation or the tough platformer Demon Turf.