Myst-Maker Cyan Lays Off Half While "Seeking Financing" For Next Project

The group behind VR games Myst, Riven, Firmament and Obduction parted with "roughly half" the team, or a dozen "talented staff members".

Here's the full statement released by Cyan:

Today we would like to share with you some very unfortunate news. Despite our best efforts to avoid it, Cyan has made the difficult decision to reduce our overall staff size—resulting in the layoff of twelve talented staff members, roughly half the team-effective at the end of March.

Industry conditions have forced us into a tricky spot where we are having to weigh the future health of our studio against the month-to-month realities of game development in 2025. Throughout the past year, we have been ultra-transparent with the entire Cyan team about the choppy waters we find ourselves in, as well as the dangers ahead. While the news of a layoff was not a surprise to the team, it was (and is) still deeply saddening for all of us.

Although we have done our best to pad the landing for those affected with severance packages, we would implore any fellow developers looking for world-class talent to reach out.

For now, our number one priority is to secure financing for our next project, and to restabilize the studio. We've been around for a very long time, and have been through tough times before. Our sincere hope is to continue to be around, and to provide the types of experiences that only Cyan can deliver.

As always, we are grateful for all the love and support from our amazing player community.

The specific note about seeking financing doesn't specifically mention VR, but Cyan is among a small group of studios with experience developing titles with hand tracking.

How can Apple, Meta, Google, Valve, Sony and others fail to fund teams like Cyan to work on more VR games?