Soul Assembly, the studio behind the Drop Dead VR shooter franchise, announced it’s laying off 15% of its team, maintaining the reduction is required for the success of upcoming projects.
The UK-based VR developer and publisher announced the news following in inquiry by UploadVR, which followed a series of affected developers posting the dreaded ‘Open to Work’ banner on LinkenIn.
“We can confirm a reduction in our team by 15%. This decision was taken to ensure the studio is aligned with the requirements of our upcoming projects,” the studio told UploadVR. “We are providing support to the affected team members as they transition to new opportunities and thank them for their contributions. This step was necessary to position the company for future success during a challenging time for the gaming industry.”
“It seems I’ve once again been caught in the ups and downs of the industry,” wrote senior character artists Jonathan Pearmin in a LinkenIn post. “I’ve been made redundant, effective from the end of this week.”
In 2022, Soul Assembly spun out of the XR division of developer Pixel Toys, the original developer behind Drop Dead (2017), Drop Dead: Dual Strike Edition (2019) and Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister (2020).
At the time, details of the spin-out were scant, however the studio went on to release Drop Dread: The Cabin (2023) and Soul Spire (2024) for Apple Vision Pro, and partner with Ubisoft of Just Dance VR: Welcome to Dancity (2024).
This follows a rash of layoffs across the industry, including headcount reductions at veteran XR studio nDreams in September, and Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded (2024) studio XR Games, which laid off a majority of staff in October.
Notably, all three studios are based in the UK, although belt-tightening has gone on across the games industry since late 2023, with lay offs and internal studio closures affecting gaming giants Epic Games, Xbox Game Studio, and Sony.
Other studios caught up in economic turmoil include Canada-based Archiact in January 2024, which developed the VR port of DOOM 3 (2021), social VR studio VRChat, which laid off 30% of staff last June, and Meta, which closed Ready at Dawn last August, developer behind Echo VR and the Lone Echo series.
