This industry is very cruel to talented teams. Releasing a video game in 2026, no matter how good it is, is riskier than ever since nothing guarantees success. According to the Game Industry Layoffs website, in the last three years there have been more than 30,000 layoffs in numerous studios and, although almost everyone is talking about the enormous restructuring that is coming for Xbox, we cannot forget about the indie studios that continue to create brilliant games.
The creators of Luna Abyss close
In this case we have to advance bad news that fully affects the team of Kwalee Labscreators of Luna Abyssa retrofuturistic shooter which hit the market on May 21 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC after seven years of development. Luna Abyss reached an 81 on Metacritic and accumulates ‘Very Positive’ reviews on Steam since its launch. Three weeks after that, the distributor Kwalee has decided to fire the entire team, specifically nine people.
The news was made public by Hollie Emery herself through a publication on LinkedIn, where until a few days ago she had also published a message of gratitude for the support received after the launch. In this latest statement, Emery advanced the following: “Unfortunately, since yesterday, the entire team has been fired; a decision that was completely out of our control.” No reasons were explained or further details were offered, but the community agrees that the industry is losing a very talented team, even more so considering that Luna Abyss was his first game.
Although Luna Abys has received good reviews on steamthat has not prevented the catastrophe in sales. As seen on SteamDB, the shooter barely reached 300 simultaneous players, it even came out on Game Pass at launch, something that should have guaranteed a considerable player base and partially boosted sales on PC. In any case, Emery closed his publication with a gesture that is appreciated: sharing the LinkedIn profiles of all team members to make it easier for other industry studios to contact them.
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