Developer Double Fine Productions has officially announced that recently the studio had to let go of 23 developers, or roughly 25% of their total staff after going independent from Xbox, and following seven years under the brand. The company confirmed about the layoffs yesterday on Bluesky, stating that the downsizing was done solely to ensure the survival of the studio following their departure from Xbox:
“As a small, tightly-knit team, these actions are not taken lightly,” Double Fine founder Tim Schafer has said: “Only the survival of our studio would ever make us consider such a painful action. Our transition to becoming an independent company also means becoming a size that we can sustain. The people we are losing were all important. They all made an impact on our games and culture, and they will be missed. We are committed to supporting each affected person as best as we can, and we thank them for their hard work and commitment to the creative spirit we cherish here at Double Fine.”
Following Double Fine’s statement, Xbox has also released their own official confirmation regarding the status of the newly independent studio, assuring that they get to keep all of their “IP, catalog, and runway for their next games.”
“As they begin their next chapter as an independent studio, we look forward to seeing what they create next. Double Fine is now fully independent and manages its own operations,” an Xbox spokesperson said to Kotaku.
Double Fine Productions, which is a roughly 90-member studio, along with Compulsion Games (developer of We Happy Few, South of Midnight among others) were let go from Xbox as a part of the brand’s ongoing ‘Reset’ which has resulted in mass layoffs and has seen a total of 1600 staff losing their jobs two weeks back and 3200 employees scheduled to be let go by the end of the current fiscal year.
