Heart Machine Announces More Layoffs After Shutting Down Sweet Baby Inc. Infected 'Hyper Light Breaker'
Heart Machine, the developer of Sweet Baby Inc. infected Hyper Light Breaker and the upcoming Possessors, laid off even more employees this week.
Numerous developers at the company revealed they had recently been laid off just a few weeks ahead of Possessors launch next month.
One wrote, “My heart is heavy & I might have more to say on that later, but I’ve got news today that my time at Heart Machine will come to an end after POSSESSOR(S) ships. I’m honestly too busy... literally shipping the game to start actively looking for work, but I’ll be looking for my next gig in December.”
Another stated, “My time at Heart Machine has sadly come to a rather abrupt end. I was there for almost 6 years, & had been working on Breaker since summer 2020. It was a pleasure working with them!”
Yiyi Zhan, the Community and PR manager for Heart Machine, said in a video post, “Heart Machine has just laid off a bunch more people effective immediately. And by the time Possessors comes out on November 11th I don’t know if anyone who worked on the game will even be at the company any more. That’s game dev.”
These new layoffs come after the company announced it was ending development on the Sweet Baby Inc. infected Hyper Light Breaker earlier this month and laying off a number of employees.
A spokesman told Game Developer, “As we wrap up our work on Hyper Light Breaker, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to part ways with a number of talented team members. This was not our ideal path, but rather the only one available given the circumstances.”
“While this path will include a conclusion on the project, it reflects broader forces beyond our control, including shifts in funding, corporate consolidation and the uncertain environment many small studios like us are navigating today.”
That conclusion is expected to arrive in January, “We still have something coming in January. We plan to deliver something meaningful and as polished and complete as we can given our current circumstances. We’re doing our best to refine what we can, complete key systems, and have the game culminate in a satisfying punctuation point.”
That announcement came a year after it was reported that the company “dismissed a ‘portion’ of its workforce, although its unclear which departments this has affected.”
Additionally, it comes after the company launched a Patreon in order to keep the company afloat. The company’s Founder and Creative Director Alex Preston said at the time, “Over the past two years, the industry has rapidly changed, flipped around and turned upside down. Funding for new projects is sparse even for successful developers. Everything is far more expensive to make. Paths we used to be able to take to create projects no longer exist.”
“You’ve likely heard about this on some front. It’s grim. 30% of all games developers have either been laid off or had their roles significantly reduced or affected over the past year alone,” he shard. “Studios have closed. Many have left. And we at Heart Machine are not immune, having gone through layoffs in November of this year.”
Next, he shared specifically why he and the company are launching the Patreon, “Since the old models are not enough, we have to adapt. So we’re asking for support to help us continue to not just survive, but adapt and thrive. To help us prototype and build new projects, to help support us when the state of the industry has made it so much harder to exist.”
“Ever since we got started back in the Kickstarter days, we’ve been big on talking to our audience. And we think this Patreon is an opportunity for us to do more on this front while also benefitting.”
Hyper Light Breaker was added to the Sweet Baby Inc. detected Steam curator group given Sweet Baby Inc. revealed it had worked on the game in regards to world building, story, story structure, and character development.
After releasing in January 2025, the game hit a peak concurrent player count of just 5,230. Most recently, the game hit a 24-hour peak of just 6 players.
This is delicious. Suffer, woke losers.