Reflector Entertainment has confirmed that they are laying off 18 % of their workforce.
As reported by Game Developer, Reflector’s general manager Marc-André Séguin made the announcement on their official website. Séguin shared this message:
“For most of our studio’s history, we have been fortunate enough not to have to make changes like this. Today’s announcement isn’t driven by commercial success or external pressures, but stems instead from our current reality, which is that at this time, we cannot guarantee tangible work for all of the talented individuals we employ.
With the recent release of Unknown 9: Awakening and our two key production lines entering the early stages of development, we must make sure that our staff is laser-focused on contributing to the projects that wholly benefit from their skillsets.
As such, we are reducing our team by approximately 18% of Reflector’s total workforce, a decision that impacts people who aren’t assigned to roles that our active projects require.”
Unknown 9: Awakening released last October 18, 2024, on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. The game hit MetaCritic scores of 59 on PlayStation 5, 64 on Xbox Series X|S, and 58 on Steam. SteamDB records that it hit a player peak of 285 concurrent players at launched, and dropped soon after.
The reviewer consensus seems to be that the game felt quite dated, and came out to little interest. This was a dismal result for studio Reflector, but to understand Séguin’s statement, we need more context on the project.
As explained in this GamesIndustry.biz feature, Unknown 9: Awakening was really only one part of a giant planned transmedia Unknown 9 franchise. Reflector was planning to make five games in a span of ten years, as well as tell other parts of the story through a podcast, graphic novels, text novels, etc.
The feature also explained that Bandai Namco Europe took interest in the project and purchased Reflector themselves. While that seemed unwise, they were wise enough to hold off on spending on other spinoff media until they saw how the game would turn out.
While this is definitely unwelcome news, we want to point out to our readers that we are not reporting on Reflector being shut down. Séguin’s statement is quite explicit that they are not laying staff off because of commercial success or external pressures.
So it seems safe to say that Unknown 9 is still very much in production, but the project may have been redrawn in scope after this. If Bandai Namco and Reflector are still interested in making it a game franchise, then they probably laid off the people who would have made the podcast, novels, comics artists, etc. But we can’t rule out that some of their planned games have also been cancelled.
We wish the best for the staff who left and are leaving Reflector, and we also hope that Bandai Namco and Reflector can find a way forward to make this project a success. EA allowed Respawn to keep going after both Titanfall games flopped, and they are now one of the company’s financial cornerstones thanks to Apex Legends. So there’s certainly still value from a game studio even if they don’t hit it right the first time, and we hope that value can be translated to success.
