The Witcher Spin-Off Studio Lays Off Dozen Of Staff Members

CG Projekt announced the Witcher spin-off studio The Molasses Flood has laid off dozens of its staff in an attempt to reboot their original plans.

Toss a coin for the developers of The Witcher spin-off project, as many of them have unfortunately lost their jobs. In a tragic move for the developers working at The Molasses Flood, 29 employees were laid off on May 12th. The day before, CD Projekt announced that The Witcher’s Project Sirius was back on track with its creative vision. Many of The Molasses Flood’s developers tweeted about what happened after the massive layoff.

Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach confirmed in The Molasses Flood that 29 developers were affected by the restructuring. A tweet quoted what may have been said or written during the layoffs: “As the project has changed, so has the makeup of the team working on it – mostly on The Molasses Flood side.”

Trouble for Project Sirius was already looming when news back in March from CD Projekt stated that “an impairment allowance about expenses incurred in the scope of development work“ for the same, which would “accordingly burden the financial results for the first quarter of 2023.” While this may have been a first sign of concern for staff, it is still disheartening to know that the company had good news one day, followed by bad news the next day.

Update: CDPR confirms layoffs at Witcher spin-off studio Molasses Flood. Says 29 devs affected and calls it the result of the game's reboot.

"Because the project changed, so has the composition of the team that's working on it – mainly on The Molasses Flood's side." pic.twitter.com/F0HwPcIYrx

— AmericanTruckSongs9 (@ethangach) May 15, 2023

Yesterday I was laid off from Molasses Flood.
It's not as fun to update the bio this time.
I enjoyed the work I'd been doing until my last day and would love to keep doing that.

If anyone has any leads on a narrative and/or tech design position I'd be happy to take a look.

— Robert Bailey (@thrownerror) May 12, 2023

According to some sources, the layoffs were quite significant, as LinkedIn showed that The Molasses Flood employed only a few dozen developers before the layoffs. This could indicate that the workforce was already small, and this action could have cut a large portion of the total workforce to an even smaller amount.

CD Projekt also has The Witcher 4 cooking in the oven and a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel. These are two major projects being made, so potentially some of the workforce could be switched around company as a possible solution. However, CD Projekt nor The Molasses Flood have commented on such decisions, or on the layoffs yet. The Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty expansion will be the closest project launching from CD Projekt.

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