The developers of Dauntless and Fae Farm fall victim to layoffs, majority of employees gone

The developers behind Fae Farm and Dauntless, Phoenix Lab, have laid off the majority of their studio according to a LinkedIn post on January 28.

In the post, Phoenix Labs mentioned that they have “made the tough decision to part ways with the majority of the studio” and that this was “part of unfortunate but necessary changes to our operations”. Phoenix Lab is committed to supporting those who have been affected by the layoffs. The same announcement was posted on Dauntless’ subreddit and was met with mixed emotions from the fans.

The fans claimed that they saw this coming but also wished well for all the employees affected by the layoffs. However, they also kept mentioning Forte, a company that bought Phoenix Lab back in 2023.

Forte’s purchase of Phoenix Lab was controversial. The company did not want anybody to know about the purchase for reasons unknown. Kris Morness, a former principal engineer for Phoenix Lab, was the only reason this purchase came to light.

According to a post he made on LinkedIn back in May 2024, Forte was the reason why Phoenix Labs canceled all the games they were working on “including the game we were announcing in 1 month”. He further stated that around 140 – 160 people were impacted because of the cancelations. Considering this was just eight months ago, another layoff this soon makes things look grim for the future of the studio.

Phoenix Lab released Dauntless back in 2018 to mediocre success with PCMag giving it a 3.5/5 and GameSpot giving it a 7/10. Dauntless Awakening was released in December 2024 and was received poorly, even resulting in a review bomb. Awakening introduced an overhaul of the game’s progression and included loot boxes which was frowned upon by the players.