Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone. 11 Bit Studios has announced that it has cancelled its game known as Project 8 will have layoffs at the studio because of it.
In a statement released earlier this week, 11 Bit Studios says they had 37 people working on the game up until the decision to end it was made. As far as why it was cancelled, a number of reasons were given by 11 Bit Studios President Przemyslaw Marszal.
“With Project 8, we experienced both breakthroughs and setbacks,” he said. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, stabilising the development team proved particularly difficult, yet progress continued. While we achieved noticeable quality improvements in certain areas, several critical aspects of the game and its development process remained problematic despite multiple iterations. Over time, delays accumulated, and with each milestone, the project’s budget grew.”
He then said that the “tipping point” happened after what Marszal called a “thorough evaluation” of the game’s latest milestone.
“When assessing a project, the Management Board always considers its development progress, including internal reviews and independent surveys,” Marzal said.
“Unfortunately, in this case, our findings revealed unresolved issues and challenges that would require further extensions of the production timeline and corresponding budget increases to address. This, coupled with revised sales forecasts, largely reflecting the changing market environment, raised significant doubts about the project’s overall profitability.”
The exact number of layoffs at 11 Bit Studios weren’t revealed. However, it was said that “more than half” of the Project 8 team will be offered the opportunity to move to other projects within the company. Those who are being let go will receive severance packages, counselling, and assistance with finding new work.
The company estimates to have spent $11.8 million on the game’s development at the time of cancellation. Marszal said that the full cost of ending Project 8 won’t be known until the release of the company’s Annual Report for 2024.
The games industry has seen nearly 15,000 known jobs lost in 2024. The real number is likely approaching 17,000 when taking into account unconfirmed numbers.
For more GPlayr, read about the decision that was made by Arrowhead Game Studios regarding the next Helldivers 2 x Killzone 2 crossover content. And don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.