VR dev Fast Travel Games cuts 30 employees, saying VR faces a 'more uncertain year'VR dev Fast Travel Games cuts 30 employees, saying VR faces a 'more uncertain year'

Fast Travel Games CEO Oskar Burman announced 30 roles have been eliminated at the VR studio.

According to the studio's statement, the reductions primarily affect its publishing, administration, and marketing teams. However, Fast Travel itself will now be consolidated into a single development team.

Fast Travel released six games, including Band Space and Mannequin, released throughout 2024 for various VR devices like the Meta Quest and PlayStation VR2. It said all six titles had "lower than expected sales," and acknowledged the layoffs were further spurred by a "more uncertain year" for VR games overall.

"This is an exceptionally difficult decision," the statement reads, "but we believe it's necessary to ensure a stable and sustainable future for the company."

This makes for the second set of layoffs this week, preceded by Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs cutting most of its staff and Ubisoft closing a studio in Leamington and cutting roles across other UK teams.

A shaky past and uncertain future for VR

VR had a tough time in 2024 as hardware failed to gain much traction, or in Meta's case, was discontinued.

There's also the matter of less staff on hand to make VR games: Ready at Dawn, makers of the Echo series for the Quest headsets, shut down. Other developers like XR Games laid off employees after restructuring.
Earlier in January, FuturLab ended support for Powerwash Simulator's VR port. The studio explained that while it still has interest in the medium, continuing with that particular title was not a fruitful endeavor.

Fast Travel Games also publishes VR titles, one of which is set to release later this year: Moonhood's The Midnight Walk.