Last week, developer Blackbird Interactive announced yet another delay in the release of the space-based RTS game Homeworld 3, from March 8 to May 13. Today, Blackbird confirmed some more bad news as it revealed it has laid off an unspecified number of its team members.
The news was first revealed earlier today by a number of now-former Blackbird team members who announced their layoffs via social media. Game Developer pointed out that the company revealed in a PDF presentation from December 2023 that Blackbird had 220 team members at that time and that it was working on between three to four projects.
PC Gamer received a statement from the developer confirming the layoffs, stating they had to be made because some new game projects have been "shelved by some of our partners." The affected team members will receive "extended benefits and severance," according to Blackbird's statement. Less than a year ago, Blackbird revealed it had laid off 41 team members due to the cancelation of "several unannounced projects."
Blackbird said today that these new job cuts will not affect the development of Homeworld 3. However, the long-awaited third game in the acclaimed RTS series has seen a series of release delays since it was first announced way back in 2019.
The latest postponement was because the developer brought in outside people to play Homeworld 3. Based on the feedback of those players, Blackbird decided to delay the game's release by two more months so it could "ensure that we’re making the final tweaks needed to deliver.
The layoffs at Blackbird are just the latest in a string of job cut announcements in the game industry during January and February of 2024. That includes Microsoft, who announced a few weeks ago it was cutting 1,900 team members from its various gaming divisions.
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