Killing Floor developer Tripwire Interactive has become the latest studio to lay off a round of employees, citing an «evolving» industry and a need to «align with business realities» as its reasons.
In a statement on LinkedIn (thanks, Gamesindustry.biz), Tripwire confirms that it’s made what it calls the «incredibly difficult decision» to lay off 23 of its staff members. The studio says it «heavily deliberated» on the cuts before making them.
Tripwire goes on to say that it is «committed» to offering those who’ve been laid off «support to help them through this transition», and that the «loss» of those concerned «will be deeply felt». It’s the sort of message you’ve probably become accustomed to in the last couple of years.
As for its reason for the layoffs, Tripwire says it’s trying to «align with business realities» in order to support its «long-term strategy» and «stay focused on [its] key creative goals». Again, it’s the usual corporate spiel.
With regards to the future, Tripwire says it intends to «continue to progress with [its] current projects», which include internally-developed games and titles under its Tripwire Presents publishing label. The company isn’t specific about what those projects are, but presumably, they include continuing support for last year’s Killing Floor 3.
While Tripwire doesn’t specifically lay the blame for these layoffs at Killing Floor 3‘s door, a quick look at the game’s SteamDB page shows that its latest 24-hour Steam player peak (at time of writing) is just 300, which is a far cry from the heady days of its all-time best of 30,112.
By contrast, Killing Floor 2 enjoyed over 3,000 players at its peak over the last 24 hours, so it seems as though Tripwire might have a Payday situation on its hands.
It remains to be seen whether Tripwire will embark on any kind of significant course correction following these layoffs, but it sounds as though everything will proceed as normal for the time being. Stay tuned for more.
