31st Union Studio Head Says he has “Never Been More Confident” in its F2P Shooter Project Ethos While Announcing Layoffs

Back in October 2024, 2K announced an upcoming title codenamed Project Ethos from developer 31st Union Studio, a team that was founded within 2K five years prior by former Visceral Games director Michael Condrey. After little to no update on the project six years after the studio's founding, Condrey was ousted as president, but 2K was insistent that Project Ethos was still in the works. Now, new studio head Ben Brinkman is just as insistent and confident that the game is still coming as he announces a round of layoffs at 31st Union.

In a statement seen by GamesIndustry.Biz, Brinkman confirms an undisclosed number of layoffs will impact the studio while also calling Project Ethos "a bold new game with a renewed direction and vision" as it is seemingly no longer the third-person rougelike hero shooter that was previously announced in 2024.

Instead, it is now "a skill-based PvP rougelike experience that will challenge and thrill players," according to Brinkman. It's unclear if it still includes hero elements, but part of Condrey being dismissed in February 2025 was due to Project Ethos getting a poor reception at its reveal, so it sounds like they've gone back to the drawing board in some areas, but they haven't scrapped everything about what the game was in its 2024 reveal entirely.

"Since joining 31st Union, it's become clear that changes need to be made to our team in order to realize our goals," Brinkman continued. "Our success is dependent on our ability to work more quickly and nimbly. To do that, we've made the difficult decision to scale back our team to better align with where we are in development, which unfortunately means parting ways with some valued colleagues today."

"While today is going to be hard, I've never been more confident in the future of our game, this team, and the commitment and investment Take-Two and 2K leadership continue to show."

GI.Biz also reports it saw a new piece of concept art for Project Ethos, and described the changes as "a more distinctive, fantasy-like visual identity for the game, compared to its original Fortnite-esque appearance."

It's difficult to feel the same kind of confidence that Brinkman clearly does, but it's important to note that he specifies the support the game has from 2K and Take-Two leadership. Clearly, the decision makers above him see something in this game that they believe makes it worth continuing to develop. But then again, Take-Two is also known for pouring development costs into projects for years without any sign that it'll reach a finish line soon.

Just take a look at how long it's taken to get Ken Levine's Judas anywhere close to release, or the fact that we're still waiting on a new Bioshock game that is still probably at least more than a year away. And, of course, there's the big monkey that Take-Two is finally (hopefully) going to get off its back later this year with Grand Theft Auto VI.

That's not to suggest that Take-Two leadership believes Project Ethos is worthy of years of development in the same way that it's worth taking time on any of those aforementioned projects, just that leadership clearly has a vision for how the game will do once it is ready for prime-time.

We'll see if that vision becomes reality, but in the meantime, it's sad to see yet another case of layoffs impacting the video game industry, adding to an already troublesome period of instability.

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