nDreams, one of the most veteran VR studios, today announced it’s tightening the belt with a layoff round due to affect 17.5% of the company.
The Farnborough, UK-based studio maintains in the LinkenIn announcement that layoffs are in response to “a challenging VR games market, situated within a tough gaming landscape more broadly.”
The studio further notes the restructure “will enable us to better serve current and future audiences in creating medium-defining titles for years to come.”
Founded in 2013, nDreams has expanded its role beyond game developer, becoming a publisher and opening a number of first-party VR studios, including nDreams Studio Orbital, nDreams Studio Elevation, and Nearlight, the latter of which was acquired by nDreams in late 2022.
In 2023, Stockholm, Sweden-based gaming group Aonic acquired nDreams for $110 million. At the time, the studio said it employed 250 people, meaning the layoff could affect up to 40 people.
Notably, nDreams is known for a host of VR games over the years, including The Assembly (2016), Phantom: Covert Ops (2020), Fracked (2021), and Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord (2023), and more.
The studio notes upcoming titles Frenzies and Vendetta Forever will be unaffected by the restructuring.
While disheartening, the news of layoffs comes as no real surprise given turmoil in the wider gaming market. Layoffs spanning 2023 and 2024 included a number of top publishers and studios, such as Embracer Group, Unity, Microsoft, EA, Sony, Epic Games, Take-Two Interactive and Riot Games.
Specifically, VR studio closures affected Meta’s Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo, Echo VR), Sony’s London Studio (PlayStation Worlds, Blood & Truth (2019), and indie developer Archiact (Doom 3 VR Edition).