Thick as Thieves has reduced its staff to "fewer than 10" employees after a second round of layoffs, PC Gamer reported. The studio's headcount now sits below the threshold typically associated with active multi-project development.

PC Gamer's report names only the residual figure — "fewer than 10" — and characterizes the cuts as "another round," confirming at minimum a second workforce reduction inside the same operating period. The piece does not specify the previous headcount, the size of either layoff wave, or which titles remain in active development.

What the PC Gamer report does not specify

• The studio's total headcount before either round
• Which projects are paused, cancelled, or continuing
• Whether any leadership departures accompanied the layoff
• The contractual status of remaining employees (full-time, contractor, transition)
• Whether a parent company, publisher, or investor has issued a separate statement

Without those data points, the report functions as a status flag rather than a full operational account of the studio's restructuring.

Why another round matters operationally

Studios that drop below 10 staff typically move into one of four operating states: live-service maintenance, porting or contract work, IP licensing or acquisition preparation, or active wind-down. The PC Gamer report does not identify which state Thick as Thieves is entering. Greenlight of new mid-budget work becomes functionally impossible at that scale, regardless of the studio's prior scope.

What the absence of a quote signals

PC Gamer's piece contains no quotation from a named executive and no studio statement, leaving management's framing of the cuts out of the public record. The "another round" headline establishes only that this is not the first workforce reduction at the studio — it does not convey duration, accumulated impact, or forward intent.

Comparably sized layoff announcements elsewhere in the industry have typically included at minimum a statement from the CEO or studio head, a listing of affected departments, and some indication of severance or transition support. The report on Thick as Thieves carries none of those elements, which leaves readers working from headcount alone.

What remaining staff typically retain

Workforce decisions of this scale usually trigger several procedural questions that PC Gamer does not address:

• Who controls in-progress and shelved IP
• Whether contractor relationships survive the layoff
• How accrued leave, severance, and contractor invoices are settled
• Whether middleware licenses (engines, analytics SDKs, backend services) carry transferability or termination clauses

Those questions matter for any developer considering a future application, any publisher with an outstanding contract, and any business evaluating the studio's catalogue for acquisition or licensing.

What to watch next

The next indicators of the studio's trajectory will be:

• LinkedIn profile deletions or status changes from Thick as Thieves staff
• Storefront status changes for the studio's existing catalogue
• Any formal communication from a publisher or holding entity on continuation, transition, or termination
• Removal of the studio's page from directories that list active developers

PC Gamer did not publish a timeline for further updates, an investor disclosure deadline, or a planned closing date. Without those anchors, the immediate forward question is whether Thick as Thieves or a parent organization issues its own statement — and at what headcount, if any, the studio reappears in active-developer trade databases.