Luna Abyss’ entire Kwalee Labs dev team has been laid off

• Kwalee Labs launched Luna Abyss on May 21st.
• Weeks later, the whole team has been laid off.

The team behind Kwalee Labs’ Luna Abyss has been laid off weeks after the title’s launch.

The first-person bullet hell shooter launched on Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox consoles on May 21st, 2026. Just 26 days later, Kwalee Labs CEO Hollie Emery revealed on LinkedIn that they and the entire dev team have been laid off.

"We're enamoured by the love and support it received both by our industry and critically by journalists and media. Whilst we faced many challenges along the way, it has been the highlight of our careers - and we are incredibly proud that it has finally seen the light of day (thank you to everyone who believed in us)," Emery posted.

"Unfortunately as of yesterday, the entire team has been made redundant: a decision that was completely outside of our control. As a result, the entire team are available for work as of today."

The latest layoffs

The Kwalee Labs team was previously known as Bonsai Collective before its acquisition by mobile studio Kwalee in September 2025. Its office is registered in Coventry, England.

Workers affected span senior developers, designers, environment and character artists, narrative and more. They developed Luna Abyss as a team of nine people.

A reason has not been given for the layoffs. Luna Abyss has 4.5 stars on Steam with "very positive" reviews, praised for its campaign and mechanics. The paid title sends players to the mimic moon Luna, tasked with exploring old ruins in search of ancient technology.

"I am so proud of what we were able to achieve with Luna Abyss, for such a small team, in a genre that is incredibly difficult to hit a good review score in," Emery added.

As Bonsai Collective, Emery had helped co-found the company seven years ago in June 2019. Luna Abyss was revealed in 2022.

Layoffs have been a common occurrence across the games industry in recent years, whether PC, console or mobile. Earlier this month, Metacore confirmed 159 layoffs across Germany and Sweden.

Meanwhile, Ubisoft has closed its Winnipeg and Belgrade studios, impacting up to 380 jobs.