Earlier this week, it was announced that publisher Humble Games laid off its entire staff of 36. This mass layoff did not solely affect its immediate staff, but also the developers and games under the publisher, such as the developer of Coral Island now facing uncertainty regarding its Xbox, Switch, and PlayStation versions.
Developer Stairway Games revealed in a statement that the Humble Games layoffs have left it unable to release updates for the console versions of its game, due to Humble typically handling them. The team explained that an incoming hotfix is unable to be released outside of Steam and that they really “have no idea” how to release this update to console players due to the lack of backend permissions on those platforms. Stairway also acknowledged the long wait for the Switch port, which was announced for 2024, but has yet to be released.
You can read the full statement below, in which the developer acknowledges the situation “f***ing sucks.”
— Coral Island (@coralislandgame) July 26, 2024
The game previously raised $1.5 million and reached its Kickstarter stretch goal for console and Switch. As a make-good to those who backed the Kickstarter to receive a Switch key, Stairway is offering replacement keys on Steam.
Some of the noteworthy games published by Humble Games previously include A Hat in Time, Carto, One Step From Eden, Forager, Slay the Spire, Temtem, and Moonscars.
This is not the first time mass layoffs have occurred within the games industry in the past year. Just between 2023 and the first half of 2024, more than 20,000 jobs have been cut from studios, such as Ubisoft, Epic Games, Microsoft, Sony, Electronic Arts, and Sega, to name several.
