Auroch Digital Lays Off a Quarter of Its Staff 12 Days After Boltgun 2 Hit Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam

By CriticalPixel · 2026-10-26

Auroch Digital is laying off around a quarter of its staff, and the timing stings. The Bristol studio behind Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 announced the cuts on October 26, only 12 days after that shooter launched on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Boltgun 2 is sitting at Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! also landed well with players, according to reports. A pair of well-received games and a layoff notice inside the same fortnight is the kind of math this industry keeps handing out, and it never gets less ugly.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 gameplay screenshot from the Steam store page

What Auroch Digital Actually Said

According to Insider Gaming, studio management said they are immensely proud of what the team achieved with recent games and deeply sorry for the position the studio is now in. The statement calls this an incredibly challenging and uncertain time for everyone at Auroch, and promises support through the consultation process with as much care and respect as possible. No headcount has been reported, only the share of around 25%. Auroch also asked other studios to find a place for the affected staff, which tells you how the studio itself reads the job market right now. To players, the message was that development and post-launch support for Warhammer Survivors and Boltgun 2 will continue.

The Numbers Behind a Hit

The Steam page for Boltgun 2 lists an October 14, 2026 release, with Auroch Digital as developer and Big Fan Games and Devolver Digital as publishers. When I checked, the game carried an Overwhelmingly Positive rating from 842 user reviews. Auroch itself celebrated reaching that mark one week after launch, thanking players for the response on its official X account. Those are review numbers, not sales figures, and I have not seen sales numbers from the studio or its publishers. What the reviews do show is that players liked what Auroch shipped, which makes the layoff announcement hit harder than a story about a studio that missed.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 combat screenshot from the Steam store page

Warhammer Survivors Is Fifteen Days Out

Warhammer Survivors lands on Steam on November 10, 2026, and the store page lists Auroch Digital as both developer and publisher. It is a roguelite survival game built around hordes of enemies, with characters from the Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar universes. Auroch ran a Steam Next Fest demo with a community challenge as recently as October 23. So the studio is cutting a quarter of the team 15 days before it has to launch a game it is publishing itself. Self-publishing means the same shrinking crew carries the launch, the patches and the community, and that is a heavy ask with a deadline this close.

A Studio That Has Changed Hands Twice

Auroch Digital was founded in 2010 in Bristol, England. In September 2021 Sumo Group acquired it for $8.3 million, and in 2025 Roundtable Interactive bought the studio from Sumo Group, per Insider Gaming. That is a lot of corporate turnover for a studio this size. The statement does not say what role ownership, publisher terms or cash flow played in the decision, and nobody should pretend to know. The same Insider Gaming report points to another round of layoffs at Ghost of Yotei developer Sucker Punch on the same day, so Auroch is not alone in the bad news today.

How Players Are Reacting

The Pirat_Nation post summarizing the layoffs pulled more than 300 likes and 14,000 views within hours. Replies skew angry and tired. One user points out the cuts land 15 days before Warhammer Survivors launches. Another asks what the point of making a good game is if it does not protect anyone, and a UK commenter blames inflation and taxes. One reply pins the blame on the publishing side, but that is one person's opinion and not something Auroch or its publishers have said. I read roughly half a dozen replies, so treat this as a mood and not a consensus.

The CriticalPixel Take

Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam should buy a studio some breathing room, and here it clearly did not. Players did their part: they bought, they played and they left 842 reviews that read like a victory lap. Auroch still had to tell a quarter of its people to start a consultation process, then turn around and ask other studios to hire them. Whatever the cause, review scores do not make payroll, and every studio chasing good notes as the answer should take that lesson seriously. If you hire in games, Auroch is asking you directly to look at the people affected.

Warhammer Survivors gameplay screenshot from the Steam store page

What Comes Next

The consultation process means the final numbers could still move, and Auroch has not published a headcount. The studio says development and post-launch support for Boltgun 2 and Warhammer Survivors continues, so the November 10 date is the next real test. If Survivors lands well, Auroch gets a chance to rebuild from a smaller base. If it stumbles, the question stops being about one studio and starts being about whether strong reviews ever protect anyone in this business. We will update this story as Auroch, Devolver Digital or Roundtable Interactive say more.