LittleBigPlanet and Dreams developer Media Molecule, owned by Sony since 2010, is reportedly laying off around 20 employees, which represents around 15 to 20 percent of the total staff.
As reported by GLHF for Sports Illustrated, Media Molecule made this decision in an internal meeting Oct. 24. The U.K.-based company could go from 135 to around 115 employees following layoffs if GLHF’s sources are accurate.
The developer is mainly known for creating the world of LittleBigPlanet. It released the award-winning adventure game in 2008, two years after being founded.
In 2010, it was bought by Sony and the game’s main character, Sackboy, became one of the faces of PlayStation consoles. The publisher had also participated in the first title’s Kickstarter campaign.
The developer has released six more games since then, the majority of them being linked to the universe of LittleBigPlanet.
It also created sandbox game Dreams, a new IP, where players could create all sorts of games using its countless tools, just like in LittleBigPlanet. It stopped supporting it earlier this year.
It means the game can still be played, but the developer won’t likely release more updates or content to the title in the future. When announcing the decision, the studio had started “working on a new project” that wasn’t linked to the Dreams‘ IP, but it hasn’t revealed more on that project since then.
Meanwhile, LittleBigPlanet fans are still waiting for the announcement of a fourth installment, the latest and third title’s release dating back to 2014. In January 2022, rumors of an upcoming game surfaced due to a job offering at Sumo Digital, which also worked on the license, for an unannounced triple-A title. The developer has yet to confirm anything more coming in the license.
2023 is a dark year for the video games industry. Layoffs don’t seem to spare any part of the industry, from independent studios like Team17 to triple-A publishers such as Blizzard and Epic Games. Media Molecule has yet to confirm or deny layoff rumors, however. Dot Esports has requested a comment from both Sony and Media Molecule.
