Video Games

Wayfinder is cut loose as Digital Extremes closes external projects division

Move results in some layoffs at the Warframe maker

Marco Wutz

Wayfinder is cut loose as Digital Extremes closes external projects division
Wayfinder is cut loose as Digital Extremes closes external projects division /

Digital Extremes, the maker of Warframe, has closed its external projects division, laying off around 30 employees according to GamesIndustry.biz.

After a change at the top of the company in October 2023, which saw former Warframe creative director Steve Sinclair replace studio founder James Schmalz as CEO, it seems like an internal focus is being envisioned, leading to the publishing division getting cut.

Warframe
Digital Extremes is struggling to make one of its games stick ever since releasing Warframe / Digital Extremes

This goes for the action MMO Wayfinder as well, which was launched into Early Access in August 2023 with middling success.

Digital Extremes won’t be supporting Wayfinder anymore, leaving the game in the hands of its developer, Airship Syndicate, which will have to take care of the title itself or find a new publisher to come aboard. According to a statement on the game’s official social media account, the studio will continue its development.

Warframe, which was released in 2013 and itself nearly failed to make an impact, has been the most successful release of the studio in recent memory. Any other development or publishing projects by Digital Extremes since then have gone awry.

Digital Extreme has another game of its own in development, which is called Soulframe.

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Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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