In January 2024, Bossa Games (formerly known as Bossa Studios) laid off ‘around one-third’ of all employees, citing a ‘perfect storm of circumstances’. Recently, it was revealed that further layoffs have hit the company, with Bossa Games’ CEO stressing that the industry is in a place of turmoil.
These layoffs represent the second round of redundancies to strike Bossa Games since the company revealed Lost Skies, an innovative open-world title that’s a far cry from the games the company is used to producing.
‘This is Not a Phase’
Henrique Olifiers, the CEO of Bossa Games, posted a lengthy statement on LinkedIn highlighting the state of the wider industry. It’s his opinion that the tens of thousands of workers laid off over the last two years don’t represent ‘a phase’ but ‘a fundamental transformation’ of the business at large.
The co-founder of the company wrote:
We’ve had to make the painful decision to scale back, focusing on the late-stage production of Lost Skies and its upcoming launch, ensuring the game is successfully released and evolved for its players for the foreseeable future. Once Lost Skies is established and enjoying live operations, we’ll reshape into small teams working independently on novel game ideas brought to the players as early as possible.
It wasn’t mentioned how many people were impacted by this round of redundancies, as Olifiers’ statement only mentions letting go of ‘extremely talented and treasured colleagues’.
This has already been a terrible year for the industry when it comes to layoffs and studio closures. Recently, it was suggested that NetEase is preparing to divest overseas studios, which could result in several offices closing entirely. That news came days after the company laid off a North American team formerly working on Marvel Rivals.
Bossa Games is best known for Surgeon Simulator and the quirky title, I Am Bread. The reveal of Lost Skies came out of left field, as it’s like nothing that the studio has worked on before, but gamers were enamoured by the exciting trailer and have been looking forward to the title since.
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