Less than 2 weeks before the launch of its next game, Hyper Light studio Heart Machine reportedly lays off even more employees
It looks like Hyper Light studio Heart Machine may have suffered another round of layoffs, as multiple employees are reporting on social media (via Game Developer) that they've been let go. The reported job losses come just three weeks after a previous round of layoffs that saw more than a dozen people put out of work.
Three employees have posted about their layoffs on Bluesky so far, one on October 28 and two on October 29. Heart Machine community and PR manager Yiyi Zhang also posted a video on the 29th saying "Heart Machine has just laid off a bunch more people, effective immediately."
Layoffs at Launch: that's game dev.
— @yiyiwzhang.bsky.social (@yiyiwzhang.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-10-30T18:53:18.536Z
"By the time Possessor(s) comes out on November 11, I don't know if anyone who worked on the game will even be at the company anymore," Zhang said. "That's game dev."
Other Heart Machine developers posted about their job losses on LinkedIn, at least one of them writing on October 29 that they were "affected by the layoffs at Heart Machine." Notably, none of the people posting about these layoffs were included in the list posted by Hearth Machine of employees let go in the cuts that occurred earlier this month.
Heart Machine made a big splash with its debut game, Hyper Light Drifter, released in 2016, but it's had a rough go in more recent years. The studio's most recent release, Hyper Light Breaker, did not make a great impression when it launched into early access in January, and the recent decision to end work on the game triggered a spate of negative user reviews on Steam. The side-scrolling action brawler Possessor(s), Heart Machine's next game, comes out on November 11.
I've reached out to Heart Machine for more information on the latest cuts and will update if I receive a reply.