Rebellion CEO puts the studio’s recent avoidance of layoffs down to control of scope and cost: ‘Sometimes we say, guys, this game’s too big’

PC Gamer’s Joshua Wolens recently spoke to Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley about the studio’s extremely British survival FPS Atomfall, which is a kind of Fallout: It’s Grim Up North Edition. (Or possibly Stalker: Shadow of Cumbria.) During that conversation, Josh asked how the studio had managed to avoid the layoffageddon that’s hit the rest of the games industry following the Covid boom.

“It would be incredibly egotistical to just say it was entirely due to our incredible skill at running a company,” Kingsley replied. “I think there’s always a little bit of luck involved. I think we control our budgets quite carefully. We have substantial budgets, in terms of millions and millions of pounds, but we don’t have hundreds of millions of pounds. We try to make it that we can make a really good game, and it has a very decent chance of making a profit. And that’s really what it comes down to.”