Super Lucky's Tale Dev Suffers Unlucky Layoffs

Playful Studios sounds like a fun place to work, but unfortunately, the developer is undergoing a restructure that will lead to significant layoffs "effective today." This news comes from a public statement by founders Paul Bettner and Katy Drake Bettner, who say they are "truly heartbroken to be parting ways with many of our friends and colleagues."

Playful Studios made a name for itself by creating the cute, kid-friendly platformer Super Lucky's Tale. The adventures of Lucky the Fox harken back to the good old days of 3D platformers like Spyro and Tak and the Power of Juju. There were even some callbacks to the most classic of platformers like Donkey Kong in Super Lucky's Tale.

As adorable as it was, though, Super Lucky's Tale didn't receive the best reviews, earning a lukewarm score of 64 on review aggregator Metacritic. That might be why Playful was forced to pivot "to a more streamlined production model based on distributed game development and dynamic, project-based teams."

The good news is that the Bettners say they "will be working closely with each person affected by this transition to help them move forward." This is a little bit of a better statement than when 250 Telltale employees were informed that they no longer had jobs and had just thirty minutes to leave the building. Yikes. That move did not go over well in the games industry, or with former fans of Telltale's narrative-based games like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us.

The fact that Playful Studios has pledged to help out its former employees is a small but considerate comfort when hearing this sad news. We can at least enjoy the next titles from Playful Studios guilt free, knowing the studio did right by its departing staff.