The developers of Tales of Kenzera: Zau have confirmed layoffs: Surgent Studios will be leaving a dozen employees - significant for a small company
Yesterday, a number of Surgent Studios employees reported that the company has started a wave of layoffs. A few months ago the studio released its debut project - action-platformer Tales of Kenzera: Zau, which with high marks of critics and gamers failed to interest the public.
Here's What We Know
Unfortunately, the information about the layoffs turned out to be true. The founder of Surgent Studios Abubakar Salim confirmed that "about a dozen people" are out of work, while the staff of the studio does not exceed 50 people.
The head of the studio emphasised that it hurts him to part with talented developers, he is grateful to them for their work on Tales of Kenzera: Zau and hopes that the dismissed employees will find decent jobs in other companies.
Apparently, the layoffs at Surgent Studios have less to do with global trends in the gaming industry (remember, over 10,000 people have been out of work since the beginning of 2024) than with the disappointing release of Tales of Kenzera: Zau.
In fact, it's a decent game, especially for the debut project of a young team, but its genre didn't allow it to break into the mainstream. To be clear, Tales of Kenzera: Zau currently only has three people playing on Steam, and its peak online was 287 players, but it's worth remembering that the game is available on the PS Plus and Xbox Game Pass catalogues, so perhaps it's getting more attention there.