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Cloud Chamber lays off “unspecified” number of staff as Rod Fergusson is parachuted in to lead troubled BioShock 4 production

by admin August 21, 2025

Update, Wednesday August 20, 2025: 2K Games has confirmed it has “reduced the size of the development team” working on BioShock 4.

Sharing an internal Cloud Chamber memo with our sister site, Eurogamer, 2K president David Ismailer told staff “we’ve made the decision with studio leadership to rework certain aspects that are core to a BioShock game, and in doing so are reducing the size of the development team to focus on this work.”

“BioShock is woven deeply into the fabric of 2K,” Ismailer wrote. “It’s one of our most beloved franchises and respecting its legacy and meeting our fans’ expectations is critical to its future success.

“Work on the next BioShock game has been underway for several years. While we’re excited about the foundational gameplay elements of the project, we’ve made the decision with studio leadership to rework certain aspects that are core to a BioShock game, and in doing so are reducing the size of the development team to focus on this work and give the game more time in development.

“I know this is tough news for everyone. If your role is being affected, you’ll hear from your manager or studio leadership today with details on severance, career services and support resources. There is no easy way to do this, but we hope to do whatever we can to support you through this. I want to thank each of you for your dedication and hard work.”

“I recognise that today is a day of mixed emotions,” Ismailer concluded. “We’re excited to have Rod [Fergusson] joining us, and are equally grateful to everyone at Cloud Chamber who has helped us get this far. These changes are rooted in 2K’s firm confidence in BioShock as one of the most beloved franchises, and our commitment to deliver the best game in franchise history.”

2K did not confirm how many developers have been impacted by the cuts.

Original story:BioShock 4 developer Cloud Chamber has reportedly appointed former Diablo boss Rod Fergusson as studio head and laid off an “unspecified number of staff.”

Firaxis veteran Kelley Gilmore departed earlier this month after Take-Two Interactive reportedly overhauled parts of the upcoming BioShock and reshuffled its leadership team following a failed internal review by publisher 2K Games.

At the time, “people familiar with the situation” claimed the next entry in the BioShock series “recently failed a review by executives at 2K Games,” with the game’s narrative highlighted as needing improvement.

Now, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reports layoffs at the BioShock 4 developer as Rod Fergusson takes over as Cloud Chamber’s new studio head.

Fergusson announced his departure from Blizzard on August 8. While there’s been no formal confirmation that he has joined the BioShock production, he was similarly parachuted in to lead the troubled BioShock Infinite project, staying at Irrational just eight months before moving on.

In a post on social media, Fergusson wrote: “Would you kindly allow me to share some news? Some of you guessed it, I’m returning to 2K to lead a series that means a lot to me as the new Head of the BioShock Franchise. I’ll be heading up Cloud Chamber and overseeing development of the next BioShock game, along with franchise extensions like the in-development Netflix movie.

“While I’m excited to get started in the coming weeks, I recognize the studio restructuring is a difficult time for the team. I’m deeply grateful for the work done so far, and I’m committed to building a BioShock game we’ll be proud of and that our players will love. For now, the firehose of onboarding awaits, and I look forward to sharing more when I can.”

The fourth mainline entry in the BioShock series was confirmed to be in development at 2K Games-owned studio, Cloud Chamber, back in 2019. This upcoming entry will be the series’s first new entry since BioShock Infinite’s release in 2013.

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August 21, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Following their hat and pricing controversies, Splitgate 2 studio 1047 Games have laid off an unspecified number of devs

by admin June 22, 2025

Unfortunately, it’s that time of the month again. Yesterday, Splitgate 2 developer 1047 Games shared a post on LinkedIn announcing that layoffs had taken place at the company. It was described as a “small group of valued 1047 Games team members,” but as is par for the course for games industry layoffs, there was no mention of how many have been laid off – though of course the usual spiel about “redirecting resources” to make the game better. You know, classic corporation speak.

Notably, co-founders Ian Proulx and Nicholas Bagamian have apparently “opted not to take salaries as we lock in to deliver the next phase of the project.” This is normally where I’d say something like “credit where credit is due”, because Proulx’s father Tom Proulx is literally the co-founder of Intuit, a huge American software company, so I don’t imagine him to be particularly hard done by with this decision. And, you know, this is the same guy who wore that ridiculous hat at Summer Game Fest, so you’ll be hearing no compliments from me.

It’s unclear as to whether this means Splitgate 2 is underperforming at all at the moment. The hat thing wasn’t the only controversy the shooter faced, as the game also launched with some pretty ridiculous prices for some of its in-game items. A one-two punch of a bad PR move and extortionate prices does not a healthy community make. In any case, as always I hope everyone that’s been affected by the layoffs is able to land on their feet.

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June 22, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Black Panther game reportedly canned as EA closes Cliffhanger Games, resulting in an unspecified amount of layoffs and role switches

by admin May 29, 2025

EA’s decided to go back to the cutting well. Its execs have decided to cancel a Black Panther game that was in the works at Cliffhanger Games, and close the studio for good measure. An unspecified number of people will lose their jons or have to transition to other roles within EA as a result.

This is according to a report from IGN, which cites an email from EA Entertainment president Laura Miele about these latest cuts as having said that they’re part of the publisher’s ongoing efforts to “sharpen our focus” and go hard on “the most significant growth opportunities”. Yep, it’s 2025, and a liscenced Marvel tie-in revolving around a popular movie franchise apparently isn’t a good opportunity to make money.

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EA hasn’t confirmed the number of staff affected by Cliffhanger’s closure and some layoffs to its mobile and central teams it’s enacting at the same time, with IGN understanding that less people will be hit than the roughly 300 impacted by the layoffs the publisher enacted just last month.

That last round, in case you’ve lost track of EA’s wanton self-destruction by this point, involved staff at respawn and came with the news that an in-development Titanfall game had been consigned to the scrapheap.

“These decisions are hard,” Miele wrote in the email, “They affect people we’ve worked with, learned from, and shared real moments with. We’re doing everything we can to support them — including finding opportunities within EA, where we’ve had success helping people land in new roles.”

We’d not seen anything of this Black Panther game from Cliffhanger following its announcement back in 2023. That announcement revealed that it’d be a third-person, single-player thing featuring “an expansive and reactive world that empowers players to experience what it is like to take on the mantle of Wakanda’s protector, the Black Panther”. In 2024, a job listing hinted that world could be an open one.

So, it’s impossible to say if it’d have been a good, bad, or just decent game had it gone the distance. But, like, what are we doing here if even games like this don’t get the chance to make it to an end result? Miele said that EA plans to continue to put cash into Motive’s Iron Man game and the next Star Wars: Jedi game from Respawn.

Aside from that though, the publisher’s continued move away from liscenced titles looks to be seeing it pretty much circle the wagons around Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, Apex Legends, and the Mass Effect game what’s left of BioWare is now working on.

After all, why bother giving yourself lots of chances to make money, when you can put all of your eggs into an increasingly dwindling basket and desperately pray that nothing ever goes wrong with any of them?

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May 29, 2025 0 comments