The videogame industry continues to be wracked by instability and chaos: Evening Star, the developer of the 3D platformer Penny's Big Breakaway, has announced that"turbulence" in the business has forced it to lay off six employees.
"Despite our best efforts to secure another project to keep our team together, we are in the unfortunate situation of having to lay off some of the folks that have worked with us for the last few years on Penny's Big Breakaway." This isn’t a choice we wanted to make, as they are all very talented and valued individuals. But for now, we want to do all we can to help them land on their feet.Evening Star was formed in 2018 by veterans of the Sonic Mania development team, and that heritage showed through in Penny's Big Breakaway.
The layoffs at Evening Star are the latest in a nearly two-year bloodbath of cuts that have rocked the game development industry:lost their jobs through early 2024, and the situation has not gotten any better in the last six months. This week alone has seen layoffs atannounced that it had made"the tough decision to significantly scale down our team to secure the future of our studio," just one month before the game's long-awaited release on PC.