Avalanche Studios Announces Layoffs, Studio Closure

The news comes less than two months after the cancellation of development on their co-op title Contraband. Described as “a co-op smuggler’s paradise set in the fictional world of 1970s Bayan,” the game had been in the works since 2021, in collaboration with XBox Game Studios Publishing. Contraband’s cancellation was itself announced one month after mass layoffs at Microsoft axed major titles like Everwild, the Perfect Dark reboot, and a Zenimax project code-named Blackbird, this past July.

“Our immediate focus is to offer full support to all Avalanchers during this challenging time,” says Avalanche Studios. “Despite these changes, we remain deeply committed to providing amazing games to our passionate player communities.” The company cites nebulous “challenges” as the cause for the layoffs, without mentioning the recent cancellation or Microsoft.

Avalanche is known for developing Just Cause, a series of open world action-adventure games about overthrowing the government that began in 2006. The series has sold over 15 million copies since 2018.

It’s not news that game developers are suffering. Capitalism does not value any of its laborers, least of all artists; when CEOs fail to do their jobs, the people beneath them pay the price. Artists will keep making things anyway, of course, in spite of every force working against them. But we are losing out on untold cultural value because of all the brilliant minds exhausted by putting food on the table.