14 staff let go as company looks to 'shift the balance of skills'

Redundancies strike at Frontier Developments

Elite: Dangerous studio Frontier Developments has laid off 14 employees.

As reported by Eurogamer, the redundancies have affected a number of discilplines at the firm including art, animation and audio.

The employees were informed of the layoffs on Friday.

Frontier MD David Walsh said that staff had been let go due to the changing mix of skills requirements for the studio’s current and future projects.

He added that the company’s financial position remained healthy, but felt it best to inform developers of the decision as soon as possible.

Walsh also said that Frontier was still actively recruiting to “shift the balance of skills” at the company.

"Frontier regretfully has given a total of 14 people (from a staff of 233) notice that their roles are redundant, across art (9), animation (3) and audio (2) disciplines,” said Walsh.

“This is due to the changing mix of skills requirements for our current and future projects – it is not a reflection on the company’s prospects, which remain healthy. Once we took the decision to make the roles redundant, we felt it was better that the affected people knew ASAP so they can plan any further expenditure over the Christmas period accordingly and focus on their search for new roles as soon as possible. We have provided redundancy arrangements in excess of the minimum.

“We are actively recruiting to shift the balance of skills we have within the company to enable us to deliver the set of projects currently in development."

Frontier is currently in the middle of its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to fund the development of Elite: Dangerous, in which it has asked donators for £1.25m to get the title greenlit.

At the time of writing the studio has garnered £780,542 from 16,047 backers with 18 days left to go.

About MCV Staff

Check Also

The shortlist for the 2024 MCV/DEVELOP Awards!

After carefully considering the many hundreds of nominations, we have a shortlist! Voting on the winners will begin soon, ahead of the awards ceremony on June 20th