Rocksteady Studios, the developer behind the Batman: Arkham Series and, most recently, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, is facing layoffs due to the latter’s underwhelming sales performance and its failure in meeting the expectations of its publisher and parent company, Warner Bros. Games and Warner Bros. Discovery, according to the latest reports. Ballistic Moon, the developers behind the Until Dawn remake, is also losing some of its talent, per LinkedIn posts from at least two former employees, including Harry Williams, a technical designer that was recently “made redundant.”
From a report regarding Rocksteady:
- “The company’s QA department has seen its size almost cut in half over the past month…from 33 team members to 15, with poor sales of Suicide Squad directly cited as a reason for its ‘restructuring.'”
- “The job losses extend outside of QA, too. One staff member posting publicly on social media over the weekend revealed they had been told they were being made redundant in the middle of their paternity leave.”
- “Rocksteady staff – who requested to remain anonymous [said] that the loss of so many roles in the developer’s QA department, including team members with specialised knowledge, would leave their remaining colleagues shouldered with more work.”
Former Ballistic Moon employees are saying:
- Harry Williams
- “After two exciting years working on the wonderful Until Dawn 2024 at Ballistic Moon I am unfortunately being made redundant as a Technical Designer.”
- “Ive loved working with everyone at BM and hope I cross paths with members of that family in future projects!”
- Cassy Cornish
- “Like many others in this wonderful but turbulent industry, I am sadly being made redundant from my role as a Junior Game Designer at Ballistic Moon.
- “The team have been wonderful and I’m so excited for our game to release in October!”
Some recent promos for those games:
A game description for the Until Dawn remake:
Rebuilt from the ground up for PS5 consoles and PC, Until Dawn invites you to immerse yourself in a gripping slasher horror where every decision can make the difference between life and death.
When eight friends return to the isolated mountain lodge where two of their group vanished a year prior, things quickly take a sinister turn. As fear tightens its icy grip on the group, their remote retreat becomes an inescapable nightmare.
Your actions and choices will determine who survives Until Dawn in this definitive version of the seminal horror classic.