The 37-year-old studio behind Myst and Riven laid off 'roughly half' of its staff: 'Our sincere hope is to continue to be around'

(Image credit: Cyan Worlds)

Less than a year after releasing its acclaimed Riven remake, Cyan Worlds announced last week that twelve of its employees were laid off in a statement on Bluesky.

That represents around half of the studio according to the statement, which adds: "We are having to weigh the future health of our studio against the month-to-month realities of game development in 2025." It says that leadership was "ultra-transparent" with employees about the state of the games industry and the "choppy waters" that led to these layoffs, and Cyan Worlds stated that "the news of a layoff was not a surprise to the team."

The statement was followed up by a post which lists the portion of affected staff who consented to having their info posted, with Cyan Worlds calling on "any fellow developers looking for world-class talent to reach out."

Lead visual designer at Cyan Worlds Claire Hummel responded to the news in a post on X, saying "God this industry sucks right now. I'm not affected by this layoff, but a lot of absolutely amazing people were—I've worked with this team for a year and a half now, and I'd write any one of them a glowing recommendation at the drop of a hat."

I hate it. I hate it so much. 💔 https://t.co/lwECjeeTokMarch 28, 2025

Layoffs have plagued the games industry on an especially gut-wrenching scale in the last several years, and it sounds like Cyan Worlds has been hit particularly hard. The recent statement mentions its immediate priority is to "restabilize the studio," and even though it's one of the longest standing indies in the business, right now its "sincere hope is to continue to be around."

It's hard to know how recent games Firmament and the Riven remake sold, though the former was crowdfunded on Kickstarter and the latter received rave reviews, impressing us at PC Gamer to the tune of a 90% review from contributor Kerry Brunskill. The remake of its most well-known game, Myst, just received a free new world only a week ago, getting the sort of long-term support unheard of in the space of '90s adventure games.

While this is part of a long pattern of layoffs all over the industry, it's galling to see a historic indie like Cyan Worlds hit so hard. It's not known what the studio's next project is, but hopefully it'll be able to see it through.

Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...