Killing Floor studio Tripwire Interactive has laid off 36 employees in what it says “was certainly not an easy decision, but unfortunately a necessary one for the organization.”

The cuts at Tripwire appear significant: A source at the studio told PC Gamer that roughly 40-50 employees are left following the layoffs.

“Our team is focused on our internal projects, including active development of Maneater 2, ongoing work on Killing Floor 3, and publishing efforts under the Tripwire Presents label,” the studio wrote in a message shared on LinkedIn. “We are continuing to give the best support possible to all of our games and remain committed to our awesome community.”

Maneater 2 was announced in September, five years after the release of the original, which was a significant success for Tripwire. But the studio has had difficulty replicating that success, even with its best-known game series: Killing Floor 3, released in 2025, remains mired in “mixed” user reviews on Steam, and its concurrent player count on the platform is a small fraction of its 2016 predecessor.

The layoffs also come less than a week after Tripwire announced an expansion of its Tripwire Presents publishing division to include “scaled publishing support of smaller independent developers”—essentially offering a variable suite of services to what Tripwire publishing director Bryan West called “scrappy developers” who could a little assist with their games in specific areas.