Funcom has started a restructuring that will include layoffs. The Norwegian developer has decided to put all of its effort into running Conan Exiles and Dune: Awakening as live games, according to GamesIndustry.biz. Funcom has not said how many employees are affected.
The company is also changing leaders. CEO Rui Casais will leave at the end of the year, and Chief Product Officer Scott Junior will replace him. Casais has run Funcom for 11 years, including through Tencent’s acquisition of the studio in 2020. He joined 22 years ago as a junior programmer. Junior has been at Funcom for 25 years and most recently served as executive producer on Dune: Awakening.
In a statement, Casais said the change was tied to the end of the game’s main development period. He said the studio can no longer support the headcount and structure it needed at the peak of production. “Moving from full production into long-term post-launch development and operations requires a different organization,” he said.
Funcom’s press release said the restructuring will shrink the organization. The company plans to keep supporting and expanding both games and will keep building on the recently released Enhanced edition of Conan Exiles. It added that it won’t share more details about the cuts until the process is over, out of respect for the staff involved.
Junior said his job will be organizing Funcom so it can keep adding new content and gameplay to the two games for years to come.
These are not Funcom’s first cuts since Dune: Awakening came out. GamesIndustry.biz notes that the company laid off staff in October 2025, after a launch it called the biggest in its 32-year history. During that round it closed The Outsiders, the Swedish studio behind Metal: Hellsinger, which it had bought in 2021. The outlet also reports that over the past 18 months, Tencent has taken a firmer hand with the studios it owns. In that time it has sold off several companies, including Secret Mode, Splash Damage and Bulkhead.
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