According to a new post on LinkedIn, former Ascendant Studios employee Kris Morness claimed that the Immortals of Aveum developer has furloughed “the majority of their staff.”
Morness added that “I’m probably guessing around 30 folks” were affected by the decision.
Kris Morness is now a principal engineer at Pheonix Labs, the studio behind Dauntless and Fae Farm. However, senior Polygon reporter Nicole Carpenter did support Morness’ claims about Ascendant Studios’ furloughed employees.
In their own post on Twitter, Carpenter said that “this lines up with what I’ve heard.” Likewise, Carpenter wasn’t “able to confirm numbers” either.
At this time, Ascendant Studios has not confirmed anything, nor issued an official statement regarding the claims.
Although it’s unclear why the devs would furlough employees, fans are already speculating. The decision is often followed by unfavorable circumstances.
Further, Ascendant Studios laid off half of its staff in September 2023. Reports suggested that these layoffs were caused by Immortals of Aveums’ sales. The game launched to very mixed reviews, and there was certainly plenty of competition at the time.
But Morness’ claims might still surprise fans. After all, Ascendant Studios suggested there are more projects in its pipeline during an interview just last month.
Founder Bret Robbins also stated that “you learn more from failures and mistakes than successes.” All of this sounded more optimistic, and didn’t imply that Immortals of Aveum creatives needed to be furloughed.
If the studio did furlough most of its employees, it’d be tough to pursue a variety of new projects. Let alone anything further in the Immortals universe, which has to win back skeptics.
For more of the latest Insider Gaming news, you can read about Slay the Spire 2 finally getting an Early Access release window for 2025.
