Sonic Mania devs undergo lay-offs due to “volatile market conditions”

Over the past year, we have seen a complete exodus in the games industry, with many studios. teams and thousands of game devs all being let go or made redundant. This trend is unfortunately far from slowing down, with the latest announcement of lay-offs coming for the team behind the much-loved Sonic Mania and Penny’s Big Breakaway.

Making the announcement on Twitter, Hunter Bridges – the CTO at Evening Star Studios – stated the following:
“Unfortunately, due to volatile market conditions in the games industry and operational realities of our business, Evening Star is having to part ways with 6 team members from our Penny’s Big Breakaway development team.”

Bridges continued, “This isn’t a choice we wanted to make, as they are all very talented and valued individuals. But for now, we want to do all we can to help them land on their feet. If you have need for any of this talent on your team (spanning art, engineering, design and production) please reach out. I am happy to provide referrals and sing their praises!”

While we do not have an exact figure for how many devs worked at Evening Star, the studio is a relatively new and small team, and so 6 members is no small departure.

Penny’s Big Breakaway was an excellent game featuring buttery smooth controls and movement, and represents one of the best new 3D platformers in a long time. As such, it is a shame to see that the studio has had to resort to such redundancies. Hopefully the game picks up steam over time.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: Have you played Penny’s Big Breakaway? What did you think? How can the team at Evening Star stay afloat? Let us know down below.

Become a Patron!