The developers of one of PlayStation’s best exclusives faces massive layoffs

Scavengers Studio, the Montreal-based developer behind Season and Darwin Project, is laying off over half of its employees following low sales on its latest game.

Season, an indie darling and one of PlayStation's best exclusives in recent years, appears to have sold less than 60,000 copies according to French journalist Gauthier Andres. This was in spite of numerous trailers and critical acclaim for Season, a game that seems to have been a massive hit among a small crowd.

In an update provided to Gamesindustry.biz, the developer shared the internal announcement sent around the studio by CEO Amélie Lamarche last week. It states: "While Season received critical acclaim, it did not meet our commercial expectations." The statement then confirms initial reporting from Andres: "Despite our efforts to boost sales through content updates and discounts, the game only sold 60,000 copies during its first five months, which falls far short of what the studio needs to survive."

"Given the current global economic context and Season's financial results, we have been left with no choice but to make the difficult decision of downsizing the studio to a smaller, sustainable group of game developers. Unfortunately, this means parting ways with all but approximately 16 members of the Scavengers Studio team."

This, obviously, sucks. Season was one of the more visually striking games upon its reveal back during The Game Awards in 2020. Since then, it has steadily slipped out more trailers showing off a chilled out vibe and lush style. It's a shame that this didn't seem to be enough to snatch the attention of a wider audience.

This comes during a brutal year of tech and games industy layoffs. This has been hitting not just indie studios like Scavengers, but some of the biggest comapnies in the games industry including Microsoft and Riot Games. Even EA got hit by layoffs, restructuring around the current economic turmoil.

With the current state of the economy still trending downwards, it's likely we'll see more studios face similar difficult choices in the future. Montreal, thankfully, is a popular city for game development, so here's hoping those laid off from Scavengers will be able to land on their feet.