Deck Nine Games, the studio behind Life is Strange: True Colors and last year's The Expanse: A Telltale Series, has announced it's laying off approximately 20 percent of its total workforce, blaming "the game industry's worsening market conditions".

Deck Nine is perhaps best known as the current steward of Square Enix's supernatural narrative adventure series Life is Strange, having created 2017's Life is Strange: Before the Storm, 2021's Life is Strange: True Colours, and a remaster of series originator Don't Nod's acclaimed first instalment in 2022. More recently, it co-developed a prequel to popular sci-fi TV show The Expanse alongside the revived Telltales Games.

Deck Nine confirmed its decision to lay off a fifth of its staff - likely around 30 employees based on its most recently shared headcount - in a statement on social media, writing, "Like many others in the games industry right now, Deck Nine has been affected by the game industry's worsening market conditions. Today we made the difficult decision to lay off 20% of our staff."

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The developers behind the Life is Strange remaster, spin-offs Before the Storm and True Colors, and The Expanse: A Telltale Series, Deck Nine, have laid off 20% of the studio’s staff due to “the game industry’s worsening market conditions”. The latest job losses are the second wave of layoffs at the company in the last 12 months.

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