Den of Wolves was revealed at The Game Awards 2023 with a brutal cinematic trailer teasing bloody cyberpunk heists. Developer 10 Chambers didn’t reveal any gameplay or a release date but it got the shooter on people’s radars. Over two years later it’s still not out and the studio behind prior Steam hit GTFO is already facing layoffs.
News of the cuts broke first on LinkedIn on February 13 when individual developers started sharing their layoff stories. “This wasn’t on my 2026 bingo card, but here we are wearing the green LinkedIn banner for a while,” wrote one affected employee. 10 Chambers later confirmed the layoffs in a statement to Game Developer and others.
“We can confirm that we’re taking a hard look at how we work and how the studio is set up, so Den of Wolves can become the game it deserves to be,” it read. “This unfortunately means a significant restructuring of the studio, impacting a large number of roles, including several of the studio’s co-founders.”
It continued, “We remain focused on the vision of Den of Wolves. Ulf Andersson and Simon Viklund remain fully committed to the game and to leading the studio forward. When we have more concrete news to share, we’ll do it through our official channels.”
From horror shooter to cyberpunk heists
One person who isn’t still committed to the upcoming multiplayer shooter is 10 Chambers co-founder Hjalmar Vikström. He revealed his departure from the studio after a decade of working there earlier in the week. “Next up for me is going indie–making way smaller games, focusing on health and family, and just enjoying game development,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
10 Chambers released GTFO in Early Access in 2019 and it immediately gripped players with its grime-y and claustrophobic coop horror gameplay. It revolved around prisoners fighting mutants and avoiding hazards while completing opaque objectives in an underground complex. It was uncompromisingly brutal and gained a devoted following as a result, occasionally spiking to nearly 20,000 concurrents on Steam and acquiring thousands of positive reviews in the process.
Den of Wolves applies a similarly harsh formula to sci-fi heists, but with much more ambitious trappings. It combines the smash-and-grab break-ins of a Payday with a second layer of nightmare-fueled gameplay where teams hack into fleshy human mind vaults to retrieve the valuable data stored in them. It’s a neat concept that received decent previews in early 2025 but there’s still no launch date.
Buying more time for Den of Wolves
“I’ve been begging management to give us a release window for Den of Wolves in the trailer–but no,” 10 Chambers comms director Robin Björkell said alongside a new community gameplay trailer in December. “They won’t budge. These developers really don’t want to make promises they can’t keep for the sake of marketing. It makes my job harder, but as a gamer myself, I respect it. I told them we at least need to prove that the game exists, and that was the starting point for this trailer.”
The cuts at 10 Chambers come as many game companies struggle in an ultra-completive release environment where development schedules are taking longer and investment dollars are drying up. Wildlight Entertainment, the team behind January’s new PVP shooter Highguard, recently underwent mass layoffs just weeks after launch and months after a splashy Game Awards 2025 reveal.
“If you know me you’ve heard this before: Making games is hard,” 10 Chamber’s outgoing cofounder wrote on LinkedIn. “And these past years have taken their toll. But thinking back I’m proud of how we managed to punch above our weight and deliver GTFO. Both the Early Access release from a team of 9, and also the releases culminating with GTFO 1.0 from the bigger 10 Chambers team. I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made and everything I’ve learned.”
