Some upsetting news from the past weekend: Bithell Games, the Mike Bithell-founded indie studio behind Thomas Was Alone, John Wick Hex, Tron: Identity and the just-released Tron: Catalyst, are laying off 11 developers. That’s “The majority of our full-time staff,” according to a post on Bithell’s personal Bluesky account.
The redundancies follow a sad pattern of widespread job losses – albeit usually in much larger numbers – across the games industry in recent years. In Bithell Games’ case, they’re allegedly the result of the studio “being unable to secure a new larger-scale project” to follow Tron: Catalyst.
“It became clear leading up to the release of our most recent game that we were not immune to the challenges faced by many game development teams seeking funding partners in 2024 and 2025,” Bithell’s statement reads. “We’ve fortunately been able to communicate these challenges ahead of time, and work with affected staff to ease departures as much as possible.”
It also claims that ongoing support for currently-available games will be unaffected. Bithell Games as an entity will also continue to exist, though following these layoffs, it’s hard to see how their next game (if any) will follow much of their previous post-Thomas work in using a well-known licensed property as a basis. Which is sort of a shame in itself, as the company’s creative takes on what could have easily been rote tie-in games – for series that would appear to dwarf the scope of a team that only ever numbered in the low double figures – have always been admirably eye-catching. John Wick Hex was not a brainless shooter but a stylish and precise strategy adventure; Catalyst, a thoughtfully executed top-down RPG. That kind of boldness is easy to respect, and will be likely missed.
Alas, so cutthroat is modern game development that almost no known measure of success will effectively block the knife. Make financially lucrative games? Layoffs. Make critically acclaimed games? Layoffs. Be owned by one of the richest and most profitable companies on Earth? Believe it or not, straight to layoffs.
At least in response, developers have been pushing harder than ever before towards unionisation and stronger protections for game industry workers. The The UVW-CWA (United Videogame Workers/Communication Workers of America) launched the US and Canada’s first industry-wide, direct-join union at GDC this year, while just this month, QA staff at Call of Duty co-dev studio Raven Software signed their first union contract with Microsoft and Activision-Bizzard.
Disclosure: Former RPS news writer Nat Clayton worked on Tron: Catalyst as a level designer.
