Still Wakes The Deep and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 developers The Chinese Room have laid off a number of staff, seemingly as part of parent company Sumo Digital’s wider strategic decision in February 2025 to move away from original game creation and “focus exclusively on development services for partners”.
As originally reported by Game Developer, several Chinese Room devs took to LinkedIn last week to post about leaving the studio.
VFX artist Jamie Berry writes that “the scourge of redundancy has struck”. Technical producer Pascal Siddons adds that “we are none of us safe from the headsman’s axe when redundancy time comes around”. 3D animator Bradly Adams and senior environment artist Adam Sharp both observe less colourfully that “my current role and many others have been affected by recent events”.
The Chinese Room have yet to give a comment on the situation, but Game Developer have confirmed with Sumo Group that several members of the company’s Content & Communications team have been affected by the company’s recently announced change of direction. Sumo haven’t shared a timeframe or any other details about these departures.
PCGamer, meanwhile, have picked up a statement from Bloodlines 2 publishers Paradox Interactive, who insist that all this redundancy rigmarole will not affect the game’s planned October release. “Development on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is unaffected by the recent staffing changes at The Chinese Room; the game is still scheduled for an October release,” a Paradox representative told the site. “We wish those affected the best of luck on their future endeavors.”
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed so often it may well be subject to some kind of ancient curse. Once in the hands of Hardsuit Labs, it was transferred to The Chinese Room in 2021, becoming more “spiritual successor” than sequel in the process. Still, this week’s revelations are more about Sumo than vampires and their masquerades.
Founded back in 2003 and acquired by Tencent in 2021, Sumo have a long history of work-for-hire projects, including many spells as lead dev on games like the fairly smashing Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. They had recently been experimenting with original games such as Deathsprint 66 via their own publishing label, Secret Mode, but the last couple of years have been rocky. Sumo cut hundreds of staff in June 2024 while closing Canadian studio Timbre Games (who have since resurfaced as an indie).
In February this year, the company announced that “we must balance our creative ambitions and the commercial realities to ensure the long-term stability and success of our business”, acknowledging that “unavoidably this transition will have an impact on our studios and people.” Best of luck to all the everyday humans impacted by these rebalancings.