New developer Lightforge Games is laying off "the majority" of its staff at the end of May, leaving only a skeleton crew in place.

The news comes via the company's LinkedIn page, where the studio posted that the studio would also be pausing work on its debut game, Project ORCS. Lightforge says that this is due to it being unable to find the funding needed to continue development. 

Lightforge was founded in 2021 by veterans of Blizzard and Epic Games. At the time of writing, the studio has 37 members of staff on LinkedIn.  

"While today is a sad day for Lightforge, I'm very proud of the work we've done and the team we've built over the past four years," CEO and founder Matt Schembari wrote in his own post. 

"We always knew this was an ambitious long-shot of a project, but we pursued it because of a shared passion in collaborative storytelling and with a fearlessness to do something different both as a project and as a studio.

"I want to thank the amazing team who gave their time, energy, skill, experience, and passion to this project. You all are an inspiration, and I look forward to the things you do next. I'd also like to thank everyone who supported us, put your faith in us, and joined us on this journey."

He continued: "For now I'm going to hold on any retrospectives or lessons learned while we get through the process over the next few weeks and regroup to find a viable future for the studio. However, I do intend to share what I can in hopes that telling our story can help our friends at other studios."