"Majority" of Dauntless developers laid off two months after disastrous Steam launch wiped all player progress - Related to employees, term, 7, disastrous, age

Everything that happens in a Civilization 7 age transition

There are only three ages in Civilization 7, compared to several smaller eras in past iterations. But each of them is quite a bit more distinct. When you transition between ages, you'll pick a new civ. You'll get new victory conditions. Even the map will change somewhat. It can really catch you off-guard if you're not ready for it. So here's a complete list of everything that happens in a Civ 7 age transition.

Your leader and their bonuses will stick with you through the entire game, but you pick a new civ with their own ability, units, and buildings for every age. Some are unlocked by the leader you're playing—Ben Franklin can always pick America in the Modern Age. Some are unlocked by the civ you picked previously—the Han can always become Ming. And some are unlocked by your accomplishments—having a certain number of improved Horse tiles in your empire lets you become the Mongols.

Unique Quarters and tile improvements will stick around and retain their bonuses forever. But unique units will downgrade into the generic version of the same unit type for the next age, unless you picked a new civ that also has a unique unit in that same unit category. And any other unique stuff like Great People will disappear, so use them before the age ends!

At the age transition, your military will get reshuffled in the following order:

Up to six units (typically melee infantry) will be yoinked away from wherever they happened to be standing and placed on your active Settlements to defend them.

Any remaining units will be placed in the custody of any active army or navy Commanders you have. This, somewhat annoyingly, does not mean that units already assigned to a Commander won't be messed with. So you may end up in the next age with Commanders who are suddenly leading an army of all artillery or something.

Everyone else gets deleted, including Scouts, so make sure you have enough Commanders!

As a small consolation, at the beginning of the Exploration Age, everyone gets a free Cog to begin exploring the seas. Also, all of your surviving units will be upgraded to the lowest-tech unit available in the new age automatically.

3. All of your cities downgrade to towns except for the capital.

There is an exception to this if you unlock the Economic Golden Age for the previous age. There is also an option each age to change the capital to a new location, which will still leave your old capital as a city. So this is a bit of a trade-off, but it means you'll begin the age with two cities instead of one.

4. Buildings from the previous age have their adjacency bonuses removed.

This means they will no longer benefit from, nor grant adjacency to, any other buildings. The main exception to this are buildings that have been designated 'Ageless,' like Warehouses, and any civ unique tile improvements.

This is why overbuilding becomes so crucial—it's almost always advanced to build over a previous age building that is no longer getting or granting adjacency bonuses with one from the current age, which will restore those bonuses.

There are a few other exceptions to this. The Wonders of the Ancient World Golden Age from the Culture Legacy Path will allow Amphitheaters to keep their adjacency bonuses in the Exploration Age. The Great Library Golden Age from the Science Legacy Path will allow Academies to keep their adjacency bonuses in the Exploration Age. And the Enlightenment Golden Age, also from the Science Legacy Path, will allow Universities to keep their adjacency bonuses in the Modern Age.

5. Resources around the map are reshuffled.

Some resources from the previous age will become new ones, and some new ones will appear where none were before. Unlike Civ 6, your existing improvements will stay where they are and may just change what resource they provide at the transition—including changing type, which can affect your Warehouse buildings. For example, Iron becomes irrelevant in the Modern Age, so those deposits might turn into a new, Modern Age resource like Coal. But I've even seen weirder ones like Camels becoming Oil (which I guess makes sense on a long enough timeline), and my Camp on that tile automatically became an Oil Rig.

To sum it up, a place that already has a resource deposit will never lose that deposit. The type of deposit might change. But deposit locations can only ever be added, not removed.

Any City-States or other independents are removed. This includes the ones you were suzerain of. If you want to keep those cities, you'll need to pay the Influence to integrate them into your empire before the age ends. New ones will start to spawn in unsettled areas after a turn or two in the current age.

This includes the ones you were suzerain of. If you want to keep those cities, you'll need to pay the Influence to integrate them into your empire before the age ends. New ones will start to spawn in unsettled areas after a turn or two in the current age. Alliances and diplomatic pacts are reset. You will get an opinion bonus or malus based on your relations with each leader in the previous age.

You will get an opinion bonus or malus based on your relations with each leader in the previous age. You get totally new Tech and Civics trees. They're both per age now, so you can only ever fall so behind. Getting ahead isn't a matter of racing down the tree, but of reaching "Future Tech" and "Future Civics" in the previous age, which will give you bonuses to Science and Culture in the next Age once researched.

They're both per age now, so you can only ever fall so behind. Getting ahead isn't a matter of racing down the tree, but of reaching "Future Tech" and "Future Civics" in the previous age, which will give you bonuses to Science and Culture in the next Age once researched. Spend Legacy points. Depending on how many Legacy Points you earned in the previous age, you can buy Legacies for the next age. If you completed no objectives in a certain category, you can also choose to take a Dark Age for that Legacy Path instead, which tends to give some powerful bonuses but also a powerful drawback. For example, the Military Dark Age in the Exploration Age destroys all of your Settlements except your capital, but gives you three full cavalry armies for free. Excellent for some Mongol roleplay.

Depending on how many Legacy Points you earned in the previous age, you can buy Legacies for the next age. If you completed no objectives in a certain category, you can also choose to take a Dark Age for that Legacy Path instead, which tends to give some powerful bonuses but also a powerful drawback. For example, the Military Dark Age in the Exploration Age destroys all of your Settlements except your capital, but gives you three full cavalry armies for free. Excellent for some Mongol roleplay. Unlock new Legacy Paths. Every age has its own set of Legacy Path objectives for Culture, Science, Military, and Economics. Check out our Civ 7 Victory Guide to learn more about them.

It can be a little bit disorienting to ride out this transition the first few times, especially given the changes that you aren't warned about. But once you know what to expect, you can plan for each new age almost like you're starting a fresh campaign. Though if Isabella thinks I'm going to forget what she did, she's in for a rude awakening.

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Iron Galaxy lays off 66 employees in a 'last resort' effort to 'enable our long term survival'

Iron Galaxy, the developer of Killer Instinct seasons 2 and 3, Extinction, and Rumbleverse, is laying off 66 employees as a "last resort" effort to keep the studio afloat.

"For several years now, we have watched our industry undergo significant change," the studio wrote in a message . "So many of our friends and colleagues who work in game development have suffered a series of painful adjustments. We’ve seen talented people lose their jobs. Inspiring companies have closed their doors. Our own game, Rumbleverse, was met with a premature sunset.

"All the while at Iron Galaxy, we’ve been making sacrifices to keep our teams intact. It has been our hope that we could emerge from this long winter alongside all the teammates who have come to work with us over the years. Today, we’re making the unfortunate announcement that we have run out of room to maneuver amidst this slow recovery.

"Today, Iron Galaxy is parting ways with some of our developers and support staff. In total, we have reduced our employee base by 66 people. This was a means of last resort for us. It’s a measure we do not take lightly to enable our long-term survival."

Iron Galaxy was founded in 2008 and released its first game, Wreckateer, in 2012. It followed that with Divekick, support for Killer Instinct, Extinction, and its most recent original game, Rumbleverse, a "wrestling battle royale" that launched in 2022.

Rumbleverse lasted only six months before it was taken offline in February 2023, but Iron Galaxy has also worked as a co-developer and support studio on numerous high-profile games over the years including Skyrim, Overwatch, Uncharted, Fallout: 76, and Diablo 3, which then-co-CEO Adam Boyes noted in a 2024 interview with GamesIndustry "creates more of a spider web sort of support system," and that "we try to have a myriad of partners and projects to create a bit more stability."

In that same interview, Boyes also emphasized the studio's approach to transparency with its employees, including monthly Q&A sessions with Iron Galaxy's co-CEOs. "You can't hide from the realities of what's happening in the industry," he said. "If you're not talking about it, you've got your head in the sand, and if you're doing that, what are you? What kind of a leader are you?

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"If [layoffs] ever occur at Iron Galaxy, it's not because it came out of the blue. You're going to see all of the decisions that we made along the way and we're going to share with [employees]. So if heaven forbid that ever does occur, then at least [staffers] saw the process."

And now, less than a year later, here we are. Despite Iron Galaxy's quest for stability, the cuts feel almost inevitable at this point: It comes at the start of the third year of an industry-wide bloodbath that's put tens of thousands of people at game companies of all sizes out of work. 2023 was a tough year, 2024 was even worse, and so far 2025 isn't looking like a turnaround is in the offing: January alone saw significant cuts at Piranha Games, Ubisoft, Phoenix Labs, and BioWare. It's bad enough that even Mythic Quest, the Rob McElhenney-headed comedy series about a fictional MMO and the studio who makes it, touches on the topic.

Boyes revealed last August that he would be leaving Iron Galaxy at the end of the year, which in hindsight could've been one part of the organization's maneuvering to try to avoid layoffs. "An industry that I love is suffering. My new inspirations are to find ways to help people who make games solve their biggest problems," Boyes wrote at the time; he in recent times launched a consultancy business with a similar mission statement.

Despite the layoffs, Iron Galaxy stated its "capabilities remain intact," and that it will "continue to explore new ways to support an industry we love and keep working towards its ongoing recovery."

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"Majority" of Dauntless developers laid off two months after disastrous Steam launch wiped all player progress

The developers of free-to-play monster hunting game Dauntless have laid off "the majority of the studio" less than two months after the game's troubled launch on Steam. "Today is another difficult day at Phoenix Labs," noted the business in a post on LinkedIn, which called the sweeping layoffs "part of unfortunate but necessary changes to our operations." It's the fourth time in two years that the studio has seen job cuts.

The studio has been owned by secretive blockchain firm Forte since some time in 2023. Since that year Phoenix Labs have seen three other rounds of layoffs. The studio saw 140 job cuts in May last year, while 34 jobs were axed back in December 2023. Before that, the firm cut loose 9 percent of their workers in May 2023.

Over the same period there has been growing player dissatisfaction with Dauntless, which was generally well received when it first arrived. Edwin called it "Monster Hunter for people who fear grind". But recent player reviews complain that free-to-play business tactics have been increasingly interfering with basic design of the game. The game has been on PC and other platforms since 2019 but its arrival to Valve's shopfront in December last year came with a big enhancement called "Awakening".

Alongside a bunch of changes, this enhancement included the bizarre decision to essentially wipe every player's character progression and weapon collections to zero. As you might expect, the game quickly attained an "overwhelmingly negative" review average on the store.

Shortly afterwards, this improvement was criticised by the studio's former associate producer, Jessie Leigh Gagnon, who stated it was no longer "free to slay" in complaints spotted by TechPowerUp.

"They’ve gutted the core gameplay and crafting mechanics," she mentioned in a post on LinkedIn. "The essence of the Slayers (who I named just over ten years ago), has been, in fact, slayed to ribbons. We never would have made decisions that are so blatantly not player focused."

The developers soon apologised for the way the upgrade was handled, and recognised player distaste for the progress wipe and other changes. They handed out in-game currency and XP as part of this apology, saying that they would work to make things enhanced. "We recognize the need to rebuild trust and improve how we engage with our community," they revealed. It's hard to see how this might now happen - it's possible even the person who wrote these words is now unemployed.

"We will share more details in the coming weeks," say Phoenix Labs about the future of Dauntless (and the studio's other game, Stardew-like farming simulator Fae Farm). But whatever they say it will be hard to take at face value, given that previous statements insisted the studio's games would be "unaffected" by the periodic layoffs.

On top of these concerns, we also have to remember that behind Phoenix Labs there stands an inscrutable blockchain organization in the shadows, smoking the world's forests and typing decisions nobody can see into an iPhone. When Forte bought the studio, they reportedly instructed management at Phoenix Labs not to tell anybody that the blockchain group were the new owners. Which is, uh, I believe the business term is: fucked up.

Forte's only other game studio during that time were the mobile game developers Rumble Games. They were shut down by the blockchain corporation in July last year.

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