Thick as Thieves dev OtherSide Entertainment impacted by further layoffs

OtherSide Entertainment has carried out another round of layoffs, this time affecting 18 people on its Thick as Thieves team. Fewer than ten employees remain at the Boston studio, and those staff are now focused on keeping the game running and maintaining performance rather than expanding the project.

The studio says the business case for continuing in its current shape has fallen apart, despite what it described as an encouraging response to Thick as Thieves’ introductory campaign after the game’s May release. That makes this a stark reminder that even a decent launch reaction does not guarantee a sustainable live or post-launch plan if the underlying economics are weak.

For developers, the practical takeaway is familiar but painful: a project can ship, get some traction, and still fail to support the team behind it. OtherSide has also said there are currently no plans for the studio to work on any future games, which suggests this is not just a project-level contraction but a broader reset of the company.

This follows 17 layoffs last month after OtherSide cancelled its in-development project codenamed Argos, which the studio called unviable in a brutally challenging market. OtherSide was founded by Paul Neurath in 2014, and it has already weathered earlier restructuring after Tencent acquired the rights to the System Shock IP in 2020.