What you need to know
- The Molasses Flood is a studio in Boston, Massachusstets that was acquired by CD Projekt back in 2021.
- The Molasses Flood is currently working on a multiplayer spinoff title in The Witcher universe, referred to as “Project Sirius.”
- Following a reboot of Project Sirius, CD Projekt RED confirmed that several developers previously working on the game have been laid off.
The story of layoffs at gaming studios in 2023 continues.
Several employees at CD Projekt RED working on Project Sirius have been laid off following a recent reboot of the game. Project Sirius — previously announced alongside a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, new Witcher trilogy, and new IP — is a multiplayer spinoff title set in the world of The Witcher, and will reportedly have a stylized art direction.
Project Sirius is primarily in development at The Molasses Flood, a studio in Boston, Massachusetts that previously released The Flame in the Flood before being acquired by CD Projekt in 2021.
In a statement to GameSpot (opens in new tab), CD Projekt RED said that “Because the project changed, so has the composition of the team that’s working on it–mainly on The Molasses Flood’s side. The concrete number of employees we parted ways with is 21 team members in the US and 8 in Poland,” the latter of which were working on the game outside of the U.S.
These layoffs join thousands of others across gaming and tech in 2023, with Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon laying off thousands of workers. Electronic Arts laid off hundreds of QA workers earlier in the year, and Sony recently closed PlayStation studio PixelOpus.
Windows Central’s take
I understand that corporations are going to behave like corporations, but it’s still disappointing to see this trend of layoffs continuing this year. Hopefully everyone at the studios in Boston and Poland who were affected land on their feet and find new jobs soon.
