Report: Ni No Kuni dev Level-5 winds down North American presence

Level-5 has reportedly wound down its game development efforts in the West, with a recent GamesIndustry report revealing that both Level-5 Interational America and Level-5 Abby have lost most of their workforce to layoffs in the last year.

One source speaking to the publication suggested that there are currently no plans to release any Level-5 games outside of Japan. While the company has yet to confirm this is the case, GI also points out that Level-5 has been awfully silent about Western localizations and launches for some time.

The wind down looks to have been a gradual affair. Those sources say that a combined 20 employees were laid off at the two studios in August 2019, following the preceding month’s closure of the design department at Level-5 International America.

There’s no word on how many staff members remain at either studio, but sources speaking to GamesIndustry say both have been staffed by only a “skeleton crew” since the August layoffs.