Shroud of the Avatar developer lays off staff

Portalarium, developer of Shroud of the Avatar, has suffered a round of layoffs. The Texas-based team intends to continue work on its episodic, selective multiplayer RPG with a smaller team to ensure the continuation of online services.

"Now that we are almost complete fulfilling our Kickstarter promises (brewing coming online in R55, physical rewards shipping very soon, progress being made on castle defense, etc.), we are adjusting our team size to better match our current monthly revenue." the company said in a statement on the Shroud of the Avatar official forums.

"This will give us the balance we need to begin work on Episode 2 while ensuring we can support the online service. To do that means having, at least for now, a smaller team."

The company has said in an email to Gamasutra that the number of layoffs is "relatively small" and also includes contractors.

Shroud of the Avatar is a spiritual successor to the Ultima games that was Kickstarted in 2013 and released in early access on Steam in 2014. The first of the game's planned five episodes was fully released in March of this year. Portalarium plans to use its smaller team to focus on polish existing systems in preparation for the game's next episode, which does not currently have a release window.