A 007 First Light developer has been laid off mere days after IO Interactive celebrated its fastest selling game ever.
Morten Elgaard, a UI Designer who worked on 007 First Light at IO Interactive, took to Bluesky to shared that he had been laid off mere days after the game was celebrated by IO Interactive as its fastest selling title ever. He mentioned celebrating the new James Bond adventure alongside the studio last Friday, followed by a text from a co-worker about talk of redundancies on Monday, ultimately leading to him getting called in by HR and let go on Tuesday.
“Been quite a week,” Elgaard said. “Friday – 007 First Light release party, celebrating the company’s best reviewed and fastest selling game ever. Monday – Get a text from co-worker there’s talk of redundancies. Tuesday – Called in by HR and let go.”
Elgaard further mentioned that he spent over 8 years at IO Interactive, and got to work on Hitman 2, Hitman 3, and more recently 007 First Light. “8 1/2 years is a good run, and got to work on Hitman 2, Hitman 3 (and freelancer) as well as 007 First Light,” he stated. Despite getting laid off, he had only good things to say about his time at the studio, praising the talent that worked alongside him. “Enjoyed my time at IOI and got to work along some some lovely and very talented people. Gonna take a little time, update the old cv and portfolio and figure out whats next for me.”
The former IO Interactive developer termed the unfortunate situation as “bad timing,” pointing at Microsoft’s decision to pull funding from Project Fantasy, which prompted the studio to make staffing reductions. “Just to clarify, I think this was a case of bad timing, not executives waiting to lay off people right after release,” he said. “Microsoft are cutting funding for multiple game projects, including a IOI project. I’m more inclined to think that lead to layoffs.”
