Knockout City Developer Velan Studios May Potentially Suffer Significant Layoffs

Velan Studios, the team behind Knockout City, has announced it is entering a reorganization that will likely result in layoffs. 

In a post to X (formerly known as Twitter), the studio’s co-founders Guha and Karthik Bala revealed the team was working on a big project that an outside partner suddenly canceled. As a result, it might not be able to maintain its current team size; 46 out of 121 employees were given notice they may be laid off in the next 60 days. 

“This is a rough environment for a lot of indie studios, and like them, we are faced with some very hard choices,” Velan writes in the post. Should the worst come, Velan states it will do its best to support affected staff members. You can read the full post below. 

Velan Studios developed 2020’s Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit , 2021 dodgeball competitive multiplayer game, Knockout City, and 2023’s Hot Wheels Rift Rally. Knockout City, an EA Originals title, is perhaps the studio’s best-known title, which earned a generally positive reception and was supported through multiple seasons. Velan later transformed it into a free-to-play experience after ending its publishing relationship with EA. Unfortunately, the game would shut down roughly a year after this transition and only two years after launch.

These potential job cuts join a string of other disheartening 2024 layoffs, which now total more than 8,000 in just the first two months of the year. EA laid off roughly 670 employees across all departments, resulting in the cancellation of Respawn’s Star Wars FPS game. PlayStation laid off 900 employees across Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, and more, closing down London Studio in the process, too. The day before, Until Dawn developer Supermassive Games announced it laid off 90 employees. 

At the end of January, we learned Embracer Group had canceled a new Deus Ex game in development at Eidos-Montréal and laid off 97 employees in the process. Also in January, Destroy All Humans remake developer Black Forest Games reportedly laid off 50 employees and Microsoft announced it was laying off 1,900 employees across its Xbox, Activision Blizzard, and ZeniMax teams, as well. Outriders studio People Can Fly laid off more than 30 employees in January, and League of Legends company Riot Games laid off 530 employees. 

Lords of the Fallen Publisher CI Games laid off 10 percent of its staff, Unity will lay off 1,800 people by the end of March, and Twitch laid off 500 employees. 

We also learned that Discord had laid off 170 employees, that layoffs happened at PTW, a support studio that’s worked with companies like Blizzard and Capcom, and that SteamWorld Build company, Thunderful Group, let go of roughly 100 people. Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive also reportedly laid off 45 people, too.