Bossa Studios, the UK team behind the Surgeon Simulator series, has been forced to lay off around one-third of its staff at the end of 2023.
Co-founder Henrique Olifiers told GamesIndustry.biz it was the result of a "perfect storm of events" and the team tried very hard to "avoid being in this position":
"We had to make the difficult decision to reshape the studio to reflect the position we find ourselves in at the end of this year, focusing all our efforts now on Lost Skies. This means we find ourselves in the heartbreaking position of having to let roughly one third of the studio go – amongst them, some of our closest colleagues."

"While we are doing our utmost to support them, we would appreciate any help our industry peers can give in spreading the word about these great people – or even better, hiring them as part of your team."
The developer's focus is now on its upcoming title Lost Skies - a cooperative survival adventure for 1-6 players set amongst the clouds. The same studio has previously worked on games like I Am Fish and I Am Bread, and previously released Surgeon Simulator CPR on the Switch eShop in 2018.
Multiple other game companies experienced layoffs throughout 2023 including Ubisoft, Telltale Games, Bungie, Epic Games, and Brace Yourself Games.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 11
Well at least losing health benefits won't be a huge deal cause they can operate on themselves.
Not looking good for them sadly. They sold off all their IP in 2022 to Tinybuild, so they don't own Surgeon Simulator or I Am Bread anymore.
They have 1 game announced that is still TBA as to when it'll launch, and they just went down from 60 staff to 40 staff, so likely delayed the game even further.
Just seems like it’s harder for these smaller companies to stay afloat. A bummer to see.
I wonder if it's the publishers pulling the plug when they stop believing in a project, or the studio underestimating the scale of their game. Hopefully this layoff trend will stop sooner than later.
Hoping the hard working people will find stable jobs soon
Is it me or are a ton of people getting laid off from their jobs nowadays? Should we be worried?
@Greatluigi most of the bigger studios we should be worried because these CEO/owners etc make million dollar bonuses and instead of cutting their bonus or dropping their pay just alil they would rather lay off people. Even outside gaming companies are laying off people instead of cutting their pay(imo the owners/CEOs) make to much as it is. I think 2024 we are gonna have a market crash or worse. I hope we can fix this before it gets to that point.
What is 1/3rd of their staff anyways, like 3 people?
@Ryan_Again Well, 40 people remain at the company so its closer to 20 people who lost their jobs.
@Greatluigi not really just bad games that didn't sell.
The whole reason media molecule had to fire a lot of its employees.
They were not focussing on making games anymore.
I would not be surprised to see media molecule shut down this june.
Could be related to the Surgeon Sim sequel being somewhat of a flop.
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...