Fearless developer Phoenix Labs has laid off 9% of the studio, the company confirmed to Polygon on Monday. The layoffs were announced internally last week; several employees tweeted about the layoffs. It comes months after the company was spun out of Singapore-based Garena, that the studio has acquired in January 2020.
Management, backed by investors, bought Phoenix Labs from Garena in February 2023 to delist the company. according to VentureBeat. Phoenix Labs said at the time it had 30 titles in various stages of development, and announced that Fearless reached 30 million players. Phoenix Labs declined to share exactly how many people will be affected by the layoff, nor would it confirm how many people are employed. LinkedIn lists the Phoenix Labs workforce at 308 people, suggesting about 30 people were affected by the layoff.
Phoenix Labs has employees in both the United States and Canada.
“As part of the reorganization, we worked hard to find new jobs for as many employees as possible,” said a Phoenix Labs representative. “While we managed to re-hire many people, there were instances where we had to say goodbye to some talented people. Overall, 9% of our total employees are affected, including some from Montreal and some who work remotely in the United States. In addition to severance payments and benefit extensions, we provided job placement assistance to ease the transition for all affected employees.”
Phoenix Labs didn’t announce its new projects, but noted that they have a “broad range” in style and genre. Fae farma co-op farming game, due out in 2023. The company also still supports the free-to-play role-playing game Fearlesswhich was originally released in 2019.