One of the world’s oldest indie game companies laid off half its staff

By Patrick Hearn Published March 29, 2025

Cyan Worlds, the developer of cult-classic games Myst and Riven, announced that it has made the decision to lay off 12 members of its staff. That’s “roughly half the team,” and the layoffs are effective at the end of this month.

The company made the announcement via BlueSky yesterday afternoon. “Industry conditions have forced us into a tricky spot where we are having to weigh the future health of our studio against the month-to-month realities of game development in 2025,” the post said. Unfortunately, this isn’t an uncommon message. Layoffs rocked the gaming industry throughout all of 2024, and numerous studios have already been affected in the first three months of 2025.

In January, three studios (including Counterplay Games, the developer of Godfall) closed their doors. February saw another three Warner Bros studios shuttered and the cancellation of the much-anticipated Wonder Woman video game. The studio claimed too many of its recent releases had missed the mark in terms of quality, and that the closures would allow Warner Bros to double-down on its existing franchises and IPs. That said, yesterday news broke that the planned expansion to Hogwarts Legacy was also canceled amid the turmoil.

Cyan friends and family, we have some difficult news to share today.(More details in-thread below.)

— Cyan Worlds 🌟 Riven (remade) out now! (@cyan.com) 2025-03-28T17:08:04.688Z

The gaming industry has seen an estimated 33,000 layoffs so far. The widespread job loss has led to the forming of the United Videogame Workers Union (UVW-CWA) with the goal of fighting for greater job security.

Cyan Worlds says, “We’ve been around for a very long time, and have been through tough times before…Our sincere hope is to continue to be around.”

The news of the layoffs didn’t come as a shock to Cyan Worlds’ staff. According to the studio, it had been “ultra-transparent” with its situation, so the team knew this was a possible outcome. Despite that, the studio says “it was (and is) still deeply saddening for all of us.”