January is barely half over, and things are once again looking grim for those in the video game industry, as Dead by Daylight loses staff. On top of Unity letting a quarter of its workforce go, 2024 is already seeing thousands lose their jobs.
More than 3,100, to be precise
According to a recent tweet from Kotaku, Behaviour Interactive – the team behind the popular asymmetrical co-op survival horror game – has laid off 45 of its people. This has affected the company’s Montreal branch, and the layoffs have been noted across multiple departments.
This is all according to “individuals with knowledge of the situation” who contacted the publication. These sources indicate that staff on the Dead by Daylight team were let go between January 9 and January 11.
A report from Kotaku has outlined the studios that have already been hit with redundancies since the start of the new year. With staff at Twitch and Discord being affected, even gaming adjacent industries aren’t safe. As of right now, it’s estimated that 3,172 people have been made unemployed.
Barely three weeks into 2024, and the forecast so far does not bode well for the next 11 or so months. Behaviour Interactive has not made a statement about the recent layoffs at the time of writing.
Dead by Daylight became something of a phenomenon in the horror community, particularly among streamers. With its “survivors vs killers” mechanics – plus the game being updated to include villains, monsters, and heroes from well-known franchises – it’s been a pretty rousing success since it launched back in 2016.
