Black Forest Games was one of the larger German gaming studios with over 100 employees. Now, however, almost 50% of the workforce is said to have been laid off. Like the one at Piranha Bytes, this job cut is also related to the Embracer Group crisis.
What kind of studio is this? Black Forest Games is a studio from Offenburg that is primarily responsible for the remake of the crazy alien shooter Destroy All Humans! and its sequels are known. Since 2017, Black Forest Games has belonged to the publisher THQ Nordic and thus to the Embracer Group.
In July 2023, Black Forest Games received 3.1 million euros from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection for a game with the working title “Super Shotgun”. This was the third highest individual funding that a game has received from the federal government to date.
It was the second subsidy of this kind for the studio, after the then responsible Ministry of Transport received 2.2 million euros in 2021 for Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed (via Games Economy).
In August 2023 it was also announced that the studio was working on a game based on the cult turtles from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It is said to be based on the dark comic spin-off The Last Ronin.
While the Embracer Group has apparently taken over the classic approach, others are ruining their business in a modern way on Twitch:
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What is the current situation? Embracer announced a “restructuring” in June 2023 that would involve studio closures and layoffs. As Kotaku has learned, Black Forest Games is said to have laid off almost half of its workforce on January 24th.
Management is said to have promised employees further information next week. Kotaku also reports from an insider who says that hardly any employees in higher management positions will be affected by the layoffs. At last count, the studio was said to have employed around 110 people.
MeinMMO has contacted Black Forest Games and asked for a statement about the layoffs. We will add it here as soon as we have it.
Black Forest Games is already the second German gaming studio to be affected by the “restructuring” of the Embracer Group. It went on a major purchasing spree between 2020 and 2022 and acquired numerous studios – including Borderlands developer Gearbox.
The company announced the austerity measures after a deal worth $2 billion fell through at the last moment. You can find out more about this here: The most important German gaming studio for role-playing games is probably closing down