Lost Records: Bloom & Rage might be a make or break game for Don’t Nod

Disappointing financial results and potential layoffs

Marco Wutz | Oct 17, 2024

Don't Nod

French development studio Don’t Nod posted disappointing financial results in its latest report, making it “consider a reorganization project to safeguard its competitiveness in an increasingly demanding and competitive ecosystem.” Up to 69 jobs at its base in France may be in danger.

Don’t Nod also paused two development projects at its studio in Paris to save costs and focus resources on the completion of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Episode 1 and 2, which are set to be released in February and March 2025, respectively.

Work on the games codenamed P10 and P14, which are scheduled for release before the end of 2027, will continue as well.

Recent Don’t Nod games Jusant and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden have not performed up to expectations for the company, leading to partial write-downs – the studio doesn’t believe that the two games will ever sell enough copies to recuperate their development costs.

A slight increase in sales revenue is mainly ascribed to the back catalog’s performance, namely Vampyr and Life is Strange. Overall, the company reported a 11% decrease in operating revenue in the first six months of FY2024 compared to the same period a year earlier.

“Our half-year results for 2024 reflect the economic underperformance of our latest release, despite solid ratings on Metacritic, as well as the accounting impact of the decisions we had to take,” CEO Oskar Guilbert stated in the report. “The initial performance support measures announced last spring no longer seem sufficient to maintain the company's competitiveness. As a result, today we presented a reorganization project to the employee representative bodies, which could set Don’t Nod on a new development trajectory.”

He added: “I am fully conscious of the impact this project may have on all our employees. Securing our company's resources and restoring its ability to perform more in an increasingly competitive and selective industry is extremely necessary.”

Read our Lost Records: Bloom & Rage interview to learn more about the upcoming game that looks to be a critical release for Don’t Nod.

Published Oct 17, 2024

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