Seattle-based ArenaNet has said that its flagship MMO Guild Wars 2 has not been impacted by the layoffs made earlier this year.
Speaking to Eurogamer, lead Living World designer Linsey Murdock reiterated ArenaNet's statement when the job cuts were made - that the project hasn't been affected by the layoffs. This, he says, is because people have returned to Guild War 2 from other projects.
"We also got a lot of people back," she said.
"So in terms of quantity of people on the Guild Wars 2 team: not very affected. But some people who had moved onto other projects came back."
The developer also said that ArenaNet has been trying to look after all staff at the studio - both those still there and those that had been laid off.
"We've been trying to be very careful to allow people space to process the trauma of what happened," Murdock said.
"Whether you got laid off or not, you all experience a shared trauma, from leadership on down. All of us did.
"It doesn't necessarily feel like we're trying to pick ourselves back up; it's more like: breathe, take a moment, make sure you're healthy, make sure you're in a good place - here's resources that can help if you need help - and then work your way back into the swing of things."
Even though the work force at ArenaNet has been diminished, Murdock says that the company is keen to avoid crunch and doesn't want to over work its staff.
"We have had many, many conversations about this - not wanting to bite off more than we can chew because we care so much about this game," she says.
"If we're being too ambitious with our scope and not being honest with production and leadership about scoping too high because we just want to make it so much, you can find yourself working too much, working those late hours. We don't want our people doing that. We don't want people getting burnt out because they work late hours for any reason. Even if it's because they love it so much they want to work those extra hours: no."
ArenaNet laid off 143 people earlier this year, part of a huge number of layoffs in 2019 to date. More game workers have lost their jobs in the first quarter of this year than in the entire of 2018.
