Two years ago, blockchain company Forte went ahead and bought Phoenix Labs, the creator of Dauntless and Fae Farm. According to employees, this transition hasn't gone well, and now we can see via a post on LinkedIn that most of the studio is being laid off.
This comes after a disastrous update to Dauntless in December which seemed to be completely anti-player and pro-microtransaction. Following a tremendously negative response from players, a lot of the blame is being placed on Forte.
According to Game Developer, former Phoenix Labs employees said that Forte introduced a culture of extreme secrecy at the developer, hiding its ownership from prospective employees and even cutting off communication between the teams.