Funcom Cuts Staff as Dune: Awakening Moves to Long-Term Support

Funcom shifts from production to support

Funcom is scaling back after Dune: Awakening’s full production phase, a shift that brings another round of layoffs just months after the game’s console launch. The studio says its peak development team is no longer sustainable as the project moves to post-launch support. That change reflects a familiar tension in game development: a studio may need a large team to build and launch a game, but the work changes once the main production push ends. Ongoing support still requires staff, though the mix of skills and the size of the team can differ from what a project needed during development. The practical question for Funcom is how much capacity it can reduce while continuing to maintain the game and respond to what players need.

A leadership change during the restructuring

The restructuring also marks a change at the top. Scott Junior, a 25-year Funcom veteran who led live operations for Conan Exiles, The Secret World and Age of Conan, will replace CEO Rui Casais. Junior also served as executive producer on Dune: Awakening. His background connects the studio’s leadership change to the work now taking priority: supporting games after release. That experience may be relevant as Funcom moves from building Dune: Awakening at full scale to operating it over a longer period. It doesn’t, by itself, show what the new leadership will change, or how the company will balance work across its titles.

Two games, a smaller team

With major development complete, Funcom plans to focus on the long-term operation and growth of Dune: Awakening and Conan Exiles. The cuts follow an earlier round shortly after Dune: Awakening launched on PC. Taken together, the two rounds show that the studio is adjusting its staffing as the game moves through different stages, though the available details don’t establish the number of affected employees or the exact teams involved. Funcom says it won’t provide further details about the layoffs until the process is complete.

Supporting a live game is ongoing work. Studios in this position typically need people to address technical problems, maintain existing content and plan updates, while deciding how to allocate effort among active projects. Those responsibilities can continue after major development ends, but they don’t necessarily require the same peak staffing level. Here's the thing: a smaller team can keep a game running, but its capacity to pursue new work depends on the demands placed on it. Players may see the results in the pace and scope of updates, although Funcom hasn’t stated what players should expect.

Conan Exiles adds another consideration. Funcom has identified it alongside Dune: Awakening as a focus for long-term operation and growth, so the post-launch transition isn’t confined to one title. Managing two games involves decisions about priorities and staff time. And yet, the company hasn’t described how resources will be divided between them. (And this is the part most people overlook.) The announcement sets out a direction, but leaves the operating plan and the scale of the cuts unclear.

What the transition means for Funcom

Casais, who is due to leave at the end of the year after 11 years as CEO, called the restructuring necessary as the studio shifts from full production to ongoing support. That explanation gives the cuts a clear business context, but it doesn’t answer every question about their effect. The company has said the process must be completed before it provides further details, so the immediate picture remains limited. For employees, the announcement means another period of uncertainty; for players, it raises questions about how the studio will sustain its games after the production team shrinks.

The timing underscores a recurring challenge for studios: teams built for a game’s production peak often contract once development gives way to maintenance and live operations. The challenge is to reduce staffing without losing the people and knowledge needed to keep a game healthy. This is more significant than it looks. A release may be the most visible moment in a game’s life, but ongoing support can shape whether players continue to return and whether the studio can build on the work already completed. That doesn’t guarantee growth, and Funcom hasn’t offered evidence yet about how its plans will perform.

If you're working in this space, Funcom’s next phase will be familiar: judge the transition by what the studio can sustain, not just by the fact that development has ended. The details that matter will include how Dune: Awakening is supported, what growth means in practice, and whether Conan Exiles receives the attention Funcom says it plans to give it. For now, the studio has announced a smaller team and a leadership change, while leaving the size of the layoffs and the shape of future support undisclosed. A leaner operation. The test will be whether it can maintain both titles over the long term without narrowing the work the company says it intends to do.