Hitman and 007 First Light developer IO Interactive announced last week that it had lost funding for Project Fantasy, an “online fantasy RPG” first announced in 2023, and that as a result, “we have to adapt to this new reality and its short-term consequences, including staffing decisions.” That sure sounded like layoffs were incoming, and today, the studio confirmed it, saying that it is closing its studio in Istanbul and beginning the layoff process for an unspecified number of employees.
“Following the end of our external finance partnership on Project Fantasy, IOI has regained full ownership of the project and our IP,” the studio wrote on X. “We will continue to develop and fund it independently amongst our other projects.
“With this context, we had to find a new balance for the long-term future of the studio, focused on the success of our main internal core titles instead of external projects and potential mobile game derivatives. This has meant making changes as well as proposed changes across our studios: the closure of our Istanbul studio and starting a process to part ways with colleagues who have been a meaningful part of what makes IOI what it is.”
Prior to the announcement, IOI maintained five studios, thanks to significant expansion in recent years: It opened a new studio in Malmö in 2019, one in Barcelona in 2021, and two more, in Istanbul and Brighton, in 2023.