Following last month’s announcement that it is undergoing layoffs, DON’T NOD has offered more details about its plans going forward in a new financial update. The company’s CEO and chairman, Oskar Guilbert, has noted that DON’T NOD has been facing issues in its attempts to secure financing that would ensure the survival of the company while also working on its projects.
Pointing to the tumultuous times faced by the video games industry, Guilbert said that recent times have been “marked in particular by highly selective access to financing. In this context, our current cash position does not allow us to adequately secure all the financing requirements associated with our operations and projects.” To that end, the company has kicked off “safeguard proceedings” that could potentially buy it some time as it continues its attempts at securing financing.
Guilbert has described the safeguard proceedings as “a proactive protection measure” that is “intended to provide the necessary framework and time to build a sustainable solution, while continuing our operations and preserving the value of our assets, our projects, and our expertise.” The proceedings are similar to the United States’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that can give a company between 6 and 18 months during which debt enforcement by creditors is put on pause. During this time, DON’T NOD will be able to make plans to reschedule its debt, and potentially even get out of its precarious current position.
The studio had announced that it was laying off up to 90 of its employees back in September, and had gone as far as to say that there is “material uncertainty” regarding its ability to survive in 2027. The announcement came as part of larger restructuring efforts that could potentially help DON’T NOD cut some costs.
“Despite the measures already undertaken as part of its performance plan and the cost-cutting actions implemented, these efforts alone are not sufficient to restore DON’T NOD’s competitiveness on a sustainable basis,” said the company. “Against this backdrop, the profound changes in the economic conditions of the video game industry and its financing, combined with the deterioration of DON’T NOD’s key financial indicators, are significantly affecting its competitiveness. The Company therefore believes it is necessary to adapt its business model.”
Providing further details on this restructuring, DON’T NOD will move on to become a studio with a focus on a single production line. Through this, the company has said that it will be able to start working on new projects while the previous one is still in development. “This organizational initiative is intended to maintain a continuous pipeline of projects and support the Company’s long-term growth.”
DON’T NOD’s most recent release was Aphelion on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details on the narrative adventure game, check out our review, where we gave it a score of 7 out of 10 thanks to its visuals, story, characters, and pacing. Our main complaints revolved around the poor enemy AI and a lack of difficulty options for players to tinker with.
