"Significant, Temporary" Layoffs Affect Dev Behind Xbox One/PC Game Gigantic

Motiga, the startup studio behind the upcoming Xbox One and PC game Gigantic, today announced a round of temporary layoffs that impacted a "significant percentage" of the studio's staffers. It is unclear exactly how many jobs were affected, however.

"Our financial situation is such that we are unable to continue supporting the entirety of the studio at this time," the developer's CEO Chris Chung said in a post on its website. "Though we are in active and promising discussions with a number of potential investors, the timing for those negotiations extends beyond the resources we have to maintain the staffing required to continue development on Gigantic."

Motiga will continue to support Gigantic and its game services "for as long as we are able." However, the studio warned that it cannot make any promises regarding the future of Gigantic.

"The reality is that a decision of this magnitude will impact all departments across the studio, an impact that will be felt by our community of beta testers as the services they depend on will operate without the key staff on hand to support those services," Chung explained.

Chung did not specify what partners Motiga is in discussions with for further funding.

"It is of course our goal, and our deep hope, that we are able to secure the necessary funding in the near future in order to bring Gigantic to market," the executive explained.

Looking ahead, Chung said he's hopeful that Motiga will be able to re-hire the affected staffers.

This is the second round of major layoffs at Motiga in recent months. In December, the Bellevue, Washington-based studio parted ways with 16 staffers.

Gigantic was supposed to launch in 2015, but was delayed to 2016 in part because of feedback that Motiga received from the game's closed testing periods.

The game, which supports cross-platform play, pits two teams of five players against each other in a single map. Each team has a guardian, an enormous creature that can move around the map and possesses its own skillset. The goal is to destroy the enemy team's guardian. Killing enemy heroes powers up the killer's guardian and eventually prompts it to go on a rampage, wounding the enemy guardian and providing an opening for the team to deal some extra damage to it.

For more on Gigantic, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.