
Bithell Games, the developer behind John Wick Hex, TRON: Identity, and TRON: Catalyst, is sadly making "eleven jobs" at the studio redundant.
Studio founder Mike Bithell shared a message on Bluesky earlier today stating that his studio — which he founded in 2013 following the release and critical success behind Thomas Was Alone — has "been unable to secure a new large scale project" and is "reducing in size" as a result.
With eleven jobs being made redundant, Bithell says that "This constitutes the majority of our full-time staff." But the studio was able to make this difficult process as easy as possible.
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"It became clear leading up to the release of our most recent game that we were not immune to the challenges faced by many game development teams seeking funding partners in 2024 and 2025. We've fortunately been able to communicate these challenges ahead of time, and work with affected staff to ease departures as much as possible via severance packages."
Around the time of the studio's most recent release, Tron: Catalyst, Bithell shared an extensive list of people who worked on the game, all of whom are worth celebrating. And Bithell continues his statement with even more praise:
"It's important to state that this was an incredible team of exceptionally talented people. If you're a developer reading this, and you're hiring; anyone among those affected would be a great addition to your studio, please reach out if we can help to put you in touch."
Bithell Games' existing self-published games will remain available and the existing members of the team will continue to support them, with the founder hoping that "your interest in our work follows individual team members" affected by the news.
"Bithell Games was always defined and elevated by our people. Today we are less."
Our thoughts go out to all of those made redundant at the studio.
[source bsky.app]





Comments 11
At least it didn’t come as a complete shock. They saw it coming.
Bithell has always struck me as one of the good guys in the games industry. I hope the studio survives these tumultuous times, and that those made redundant find new jobs in the near future.
Mike always seems like such a nice guy. I hope the team members that left, and the team members that remain all find happy, sustainable work in the future.
Any kind of entertainment is a tough industry to be in in the best of times, but I hate seeing so many people losing jobs. Hollywood is just as bad right now with many people scrambling for new careers. Hope they all land in a good place.
Sad news indeed. For those who don’t know, Mike Bithell is a regular on the Play Watch Listen podcast with a different Alana(h). Having listened to many of those, I suspect he will discuss this at some point, for anyone interested. They have very candid conversations, and topics like these have come up in the podcast many times.
EDIT - I was wrong 🥴 and kinda embarrassed. ✌️
basically I had been operating under the incorrect assumption that "made redundant" was some kind of apocalyptic new corporate PC lingo for "laid off."
the truth is actually arguably much worse, and this is an even safer situation than I had already thought. (and accurately reported, alas. ✌️)
Now I feel guilty for not buying Tron Catalyst yet (I am a big Tron fan and will get this). 😬
I did buy Tron Identity. And I also have Thomas Was Alone. 😊
This is why I left the game biz. Movies are the same way. It's so hit driven. Even if you have hits, if you can't sell the idea of your next game, you're not going to get funding to make it. The dev I worked at didn't do project based accounting for its games. That shocked me, so they didn't know how much money a game earned them directly. I'm d be super curious to know what accounting practice these smaller devs use to keep tabs on profits and cash flows.
All of these layoffs suck. But, I'm really starting to wonder if we're in a gaming glut that is partially responsible. There are so many games, good games, lately. I wonder if gamer just can't spend enough to cover all of the games at launch. I know I can't. If there were fewer games, then with less competition individual titles might sell better outside of a Steam sale.
@The_Nintend_Pedant Redundancy is the correct term for what happened. There's a distinct legal difference between that and a layoff. The jobs themselves are being eliminated. There's no chance for the employees to return, at least not to those exact positions as there would be on a layoff.
@Coalescence
well, I learned something! Thanks for schooling me with candor and kindness. ✌️❤️
It's always hard to word these things just right, and this is an admirable and heartfelt job. But my mathematical mind can't reconcile a "majority" being "redundant."
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