France’s games industry has spent two years watching studio after studio contract. Now one of its most storied developers is teetering on the edge — and its own staff have decided to say so out loud.
In an extraordinary statement issued on 27 October, employees of Don’t Nod who belong to STJV, the French game workers’ syndicate (Le Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo), warned that the company faces insolvency and mass layoffs — and accused its management of “illegal” practices that have left staff in “uncertainty and anxiety”.
A Safeguard Procedure and Two Grim Scenarios
According to the union, the developer behind the original Life is Strange games has entered a safeguard procedure — a French legal mechanism that protects a company from insolvency when it can no longer pay its debts. STJV also claims the announcement reached the financial press before it reached employees, describing this as leadership’s standard method of operating.
Chief executive Oskar Guilbert reportedly told staff that “a safeguarding process is an act of anticipation”. The backstory is darker. Last year, employee representatives were presented with two scenarios: either future releases find funding and redundancies proceed anyway, or no funding arrives and the company is liquidated through 2026. The letter claims there are no longer even the funds to complete the pre-existing redundancy plan.
‘Keeping Selected People Rather Than Jobs’
The sharpest allegation concerns how the cuts are being chosen. “Management is extremely clearly going for heavily individualized targeting and hasn’t been shy about their intent to keep selected people in rather than jobs, which is illegal,” the statement reads.
Leadership is also betting on outsourcing to absorb the workload of departing staff — a plan STJV dismisses as out of touch, citing the added cost of externalising work produced in-house until now, and the lost experience accrued across production.
“Anyone with a little experience with video games production and sanity understands how out-of-touch such a plan is.”
A Studio Hollowed Out, by the Numbers
The document lists the planned redundancies with surgical precision: 6 of 6 animators, 3 of 3 character artists, 3 of 3 concept artists and 6 of 6 associate producers — nearly all non-managerial roles. Programmers lose 18 of 22, environmental artists 8 of 10, game designers 4 of 8, level designers 3 of 5, QA testers 3 of 5, sound designers 2 of 3 and HR 3 of 4.
The final project in development, known only as P14, cannot be completed under those cuts, per reporting from Rock Paper Shotgun. For a studio whose back catalogue includes Vampyr, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden and Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, that is effectively the end of internal production.
Key point: Employee consultations close on 3 November. A regional agency then has 21 days to rule on the plan — meaning dismissal letters could arrive on 25 November.
Two Years of Living on the Edge
The human cost runs through the entire letter. Staff have been “living on the edge, in uncertainty and anxiety” for two years, it says — to the point where six workplace accidents were recorded this year and an inquiry was opened into a “serious and immediate danger”. It further claims leadership refused a voluntary leave plan for those willing to depart early, and “do not care about the damage it deals to employees’ health”.
Even the internal tone drew scorn: the CEO’s address reportedly closed with hollow remarks about the care shown to staff, which STJV dismisses as “bullshit and probably written by ChatGPT”.
The Countdown to 25 November
The timeline is brutally short. Consultations end on 3 November; the regional agency for employment and industry then has 21 days to decide. If the plan is approved, dismissal letters could land on 25 November. If it is rejected, the letter concludes, leadership “would have to go back to the drawing board and improvise because, as you might have gathered, planning for contingencies isn’t their forte”.
The financial backdrop has been clear for months: auditors warned the company could run out of cash as early as November. Its latest release, the space adventure Aphelion, arrived earlier this year to middling reviews, and with P14 in doubt there may be no next project left to save.
Whether the studio that gave Life is Strange its voice can survive the month now rests with a government agency — and with a leadership its own staff no longer trust. The industry will have its answer by 25 November.
