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Dauntless and Fae Farm developer Phoenix Labs has laid off "a majority" of its workers one month after releasing a poorly-received update to the former title as part of its launch on Steam.The company announced the move in a post on LinkedIn, saying that today is "another difficult day" for the studio. It added that the decision was part of "unfortunate but necessary changes to [its] operations.""We recognize and deeply appreciate the contributions of every individual impacted," the statement continues. "Their talent, dedication, and creativity have left an indelible mark on our company and our games." It added that it would be sharing "more details" in the weeks ahead about what these departures mean for Fae Farm and Dauntless, its two released games. Dauntless is a free-to-play live service game, while Fae Farm is a premium game with online multiplayer.Today's layoffs come a few months after Game Developer reported on turmoil at the studio after a 2023 acquisition by blockchain firm Forte Labs. Former Phoenix Labs employees told us that the then-new parent company instituted a culture of strict secrecy, cutting off communication between teams and going so far as to seemingly conceal its ownership of the developer from prospective employees.Related:Shortly after our reporting, Phoenix Labs launched its flagship monster-hunting game Dauntless on Steam, only to be criticized by players for its new in-app monetization design and erasing previous progression with the new "Awakening" update. The game still has an "Overwhelmingly Negative" number of reviews on Steam.Poor reception of this update may have dented the company's fortunes at the end of 2024, making today's layoffs more likely. According to SteamDB, the number of concurrent players spiked briefly at about 3,200 when it first launched on Steam, but it steeply declined in the days after. Today the game is only averaging between 130-160 CCU on a given day.Phoenix Labs' Dauntless was a hit when it first launchedwhat changed?When Dauntless first launched in 2019, the game was a bona fide hit, picking up 500,000 players after launching across the Epic Game Store, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. The gamefunded and published initially by Epic Gameswas an early adopter of cross-platform gameplay. This was only two years after Epic Games "accidently" activated cross-platform functionality in its flagship battle royale game Fortnite, which was followed by public campaigning by CEO Tim Sweeney for platforms like Xbox and PlayStation to lower the multiplayer walls between platforms.Today, cross-play multiplayer is a widely-supported feature for many games and is no longer a unique selling point.Phoenix Labs continued support for Dauntless but also spun up other teams to work on games like fairy-farming simulator Fae Farm and the now-cancelled dragon-themed crafting survival game codenamed "Project Dragon," along with other games ultimately cancelled in 2024. Many of these projects were spun up under then-parent company Singaporean publisher Garena (a subsidiary of Sea Ltd), which divested from Phoenix Labs in 2023.The company let go over 160 employees before this massive layoff, in the months since the acquisition by Forte Labs. In that time, its new owner reportedly pressed developers to draft methods for integrating blockchain technology in its games for the purposes of buying and selling, and trading in-game goods, according to former employees who spoke with Game Developer. No blockchain games or game mechanics have been publicly revealed by Phoenix Labs.Game Developer has reached out to Phoenix Labs for comment and will update this story when a response is issued.