Auroch Digital, the Bristol developer behind Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2, opened a redundancy consultation Monday covering around a quarter of its roles. Boltgun 2 reached Steam and consoles on October 14. The announcement came twelve days later.
The studio posted its statement on social media and put the news first. “Today, we are sharing the difficult news that Auroch Digital has begun a redundancy consultation process affecting around a quarter of roles at the studio.” It gave no headcount. An April press release listed the studio at roughly 100 developers, which would put the cut near 25 people, though a UK consultation can change the final figure.
Auroch’s account of its recent games is positive: “Over the past year our colleagues have delivered amazing games like Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 and Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! to wonderful reception from our players.” The review scores line up with that. Boltgun 2 holds an 81 on Metacritic from 21 critic reviews and an 84 top critic average on OpenCritic, with an 8 out of 10 from IGN. The 2023 original sits at 75 on Metacritic. Ultimate Bug War opened at Very Positive on Steam in March.
The statement then turns: “Despite that creative success, the same market conditions that have challenged so many of our fellow developers have now also affected us.” The Steam numbers show what that sentence means in practice. Boltgun 2 peaked at 1,646 concurrent players on launch day. By October 23 its 24-hour peak was 579. Third-party trackers estimate between roughly 28,000 and 56,000 owners on Steam, and about 835 users had reviewed it by the end of week two. The original has sold in the hundreds of thousands on Steam over three years.
At $24.99, 28,000 to 56,000 copies is roughly $700,000 to $1.4 million in gross Steam revenue, before Valve’s cut and the publisher’s share. A hundred-person studio’s annual payroll runs well past that. The owner figures are estimates, console sales are not public, and twelve days is a short window. A consultation also takes planning, which suggests the decision was made before launch sales came in.
Boltgun 2 landed in a crowded month. Planet Zoo 2 and Valor Mortis launched October 13, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse arrived the same day as Boltgun 2, and Steam set a record of 43.5 million concurrent users on October 11. The Boltgun 2 demo peaked at 501 concurrent players in May. In the Reddit thread on the layoffs, players said they had enjoyed the demo and had not yet bought the game. Ownership changed between the two games as well. Sumo Group bought Auroch in 2021, Roundtable Interactive has owned it since November 2025, and Boltgun 2 is published by Devolver’s Big Fan Games label where Focus Entertainment published the original.
Sony’s Sucker Punch cut a reported 26 people the same day, a year after Ghost of Yotei sold 3.3 million copies in its first month. Both studios cited market conditions.
The wider count is climbing. The tracker kept by Amir Satvat logged 9,781 games layoffs across 105 events through July 26 and now projects 14,259 for 2026, 78 percent above its January forecast. Epic cut about 1,000 jobs. Ubisoft cut about 680. Microsoft cut 1,600 Xbox workers in July and has 1,600 more planned. It also returned Double Fine and Compulsion Games to independence and sold Ninja Theory and Undead Labs. Games revenue still reached a record $201.6 billion in 2025.
The money exists. It is flowing to a handful of forever-games while pandemic-era payrolls stay on the books and AAA budgets run, by industry estimates, $200 million or more to develop and market. Studios Auroch’s size, shipping mid-priced single-player games on licensed IP, have little cushion when a launch comes in soft.
The statement closes with two asks and a promise. To the industry: “If you are hiring, please consider finding a place for our staff in your studio.” To players: “To our players, we want you to know development and post-launch support for Warhammer Survivors and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 will continue.”
Boltgun 2 is a $24.99 single-player shooter with scores in the 80s and a Steam peak under 1,700. If that profile cannot carry a hundred-person Bristol studio, what size of team can it carry, and who makes that call before the next sequel gets a green light?
The first one I think, sold more on an idea. It went massively viral and helped coin/launch the Boomer Shooter movement.
Games have become so sophisticated and tricked out with RPGification, Skinner Box reward treadmills, and just plain stuff, that a stripped down shooter SOUNDS appealing and people SAY they want simplification.
But they actually don't know what they want. Because the psychology-centered sociopaths building the games have so completely trained the rats in the maze to push the button to get the reward unlocking the button +1 to get the reward +1, and so on, that gamers subconsciously feel unfilled and bored when the candy-colored placebos are taken away.
I'm just as guilty. I've had Boltgun 1 on my wishlist for years because it sounds so freaking cool and retro. But I never pull the trigger because, eh... I'm just shooting things--where's muh progression?
Definitely need Gun +1, Gun +1 more fun than just dumb unplus gun.
So yeah, this doesn't surprise me. First one sold an idea. People claimed to want that idea enough to buy it, but didn't actually like the game enough in practice to buy the sequel.