Earlier today, reports of layoffs at Media Molecule for 15-20% of the personnel were initially reported on Sports Illustrated. This afternoon, the Guildford-based studio owned by Sony confessed that the layoffs are genuine in a message shared on Twitter (X).
Media Molecule has actually made considerable tactical modifications throughout the previous year, consisting of moving our focus from Dreams to our brand-new task.
We have actually needed to make the tough choice to start the assessment procedure for staff member within particular departments of the studio. This is a difficult minute for the people affected and the studio total.
Each and every single function that has actually been threatened is provided by somebody who has actually contributed something unique to Media Molecule. We will make certain those affected get the very best assistance we can offer throughout this procedure. We will continue to support the Dreams Community for the foreseeable future and will upgrade on future strategies at a later date.
The news follows the departure of Media Molecule co-founder Mark Healey, revealed in April.
Dreams introduced on February 14, 2020 for PlayStation 4 after nearly a year of early gain access to stage. A development of LittleBigPlanet with even higher UGC abilities, it got incredibly favorable evaluations from critics. Our own Kai Powell ranked it 9/10 in his evaluation:
Dreams is just in its infancy at the minute and I completely anticipate to see the complete capacity of the platform take months to attain. Even days after its main release, there are currently a fantastic number of Dreams that offer me hope for the platform. Even multiplayer and PlayStation VR assistance are both in advancement and needs to get here earlier instead of later on. This is one innovative platform that I hope continues for a very long time and even makes its method onto next-generation consoles. If you've had an excellent concept for a video game, stop dreaming how to do it and do it rather (in Dreams).
Dreams never ever made it to PlayStation 5 or PC, regardless of reports of the latter possibility, and now Media Molecule has actually moved far from the job to concentrate on its next video game (with a smaller sized personnel).