OtherSide Entertainment cuts 17 jobs after Argos cancellation

OtherSide Entertainment has cut 17 jobs after cancelling Argos, an in-development project the studio decided was no longer viable in the current market. The company said the game could have been a major success under normal conditions, but the industry environment forced a reassessment of the project’s prospects.

The layoffs took effect at the end of May, and OtherSide publicly encouraged other studios to consider the affected developers. For teams watching the market, this is another reminder that even projects with strong internal confidence can be shelved when funding, publishing, or risk tolerance shifts.

The studio’s recent history helps explain the pressure. OtherSide was founded in 2014 by Paul Neurath, later brought in Warren Spector as studio director, and has spent years dealing with project instability. System Shock 3 funding was disrupted after Starbreeze ran into financial trouble, Tencent later acquired the rights, and OtherSide was eventually removed from the project. A separate Dungeons & Dragons game reportedly in development with Hasbro was also cancelled.

The company was acquired by Aonic Group in 2023, and Thick as Thieves recently shipped under Aonic’s Megabit label. Even so, the Argos cancellation shows how fragile mid-sized studio pipelines can be when one project falls through and the next one is still too early to absorb the hit.