Myst and Riven developer Cyan has announced they’ve unfortunately been hit with layoffs that impact a large portion of their company.

The new layoffs affect “roughly half” of their team and despite the independent studio being around since 1987, the news was “not a surprise to the team.”

Cyan also posted a list of employees that were affected by the layoffs that have consented to be listed, in the hopes they can find new opportunities.

Here’s the full message from Cyan:

A MESSAGE FROM CYAN:

Today we would like to share with you some very unfortunate news. Despite our best efforts to avoid it, Cyan has made the difficult decision to reduce our overall staff size resulting in the layoff of twelve talented staff members, roughly half the team-effective at the end of March.
Industry conditions have forced us into a tricky spot where we are having to weigh the future health of our studio against the month-to-month realities of game development in 2025. Throughout the past year, we have been ultra-transparent with the entire Cyan team about the choppy waters we find ourselves in, as well as the dangers ahead. While the news of a layoff was not a surprise to the team, it was (and is) still deeply saddening for all of us.

Although we have done our best to pad the landing for those affected with severance packages, we would implore any fellow developers looking for world-class talent to reach out.

For now, our number one priority is to secure financing for our next project, and to restabilize the studio. We’ve been around for a very long time, and have been through tough times before. Our sincere hope is to continue to be around, and to provide the types of experiences that only Cyan can deliver.

As always, we are grateful for all the love and support from our amazing player community.

Sincerely, Cyan Leadership