A wave of layoffs at Don't Nod Montreal: Bloom & Rage and Jusant developers under threat
The gaming industry continues to go through difficult times, and this time the unpleasant news came from Don't Nod Montreal. The company, known for its narrative games, has reportedly laid off an undetermined number of developers from its Montreal office. There is no official announcement of the layoffs yet, but the information has spread thanks to the affected employees' posts on LinkedIn.
Here's What We Know
"Today I was caught up in the wave of layoffs at Don't Nod Montreal," wrote lead cinematic artist Mary Pouliot. "Although I expected this terrible fatality, which has become a habit in the industry, it came as a real shock to me. I didn't expect it this morning when I woke up and went to the studio. But here it is. There is no longer a cinematographer at DNM."
Technical artist Laurent Dufresne said in a separate post: "The omnipresent waves of layoffs in our industry have finally reached us after the release of Bloom and Rage. Unfortunately, while we pulled off what seems like a miracle under the circumstances, it seems to have been insufficient to keep our relatively small team intact, and a significant portion of it was lost today."
Other people who were laid off included Lead QA and Senior Tester Sandra Cormier and Senior Game and Level Designer Mathieu Tremblay. Cormier wrote: "I've learnt a lot in these 3 years as a QA Lead and also as part of a great QA team. I will never stop saying how proud I am of my colleagues." Tremblay echoed this, stating that he is "incredibly proud of what the Don't Nod Montreal team at Lost Records has accomplished: Bloom and Rage," and that "releasing the game with this level of quality was nothing short of miraculous under the circumstances."
The news of the layoffs comes less than a year after Don't Nod announced a "temporary suspension" of work on two games in development. This was because their then recent releases Jusant and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden "performed well below expectations" despite "excellent critical reception".
Although Don't Nod itself did not comment on the layoffs, the French video game union Syndicat des Travailleurs du Jeu Vidéo (STJV) said that nine Don't Nod Montreal employees were fired and another seven were placed on "temporary suspension" in order to "reduce costs across the group". The union has previously criticised "catastrophic decisions" by Don't Nod's management, and in October 2024 condemned a plan to lay off employees at the company's Paris studio.
The STJV repeated this criticism in messages posted on Bluesky and called for further unionisation of video game workers in North America. This is yet another indication that the crisis in the gaming industry is ongoing, and it affects not only large companies but also smaller studios with unique projects.
Source: STJV
