Funcom Cuts Staff, CEO Exits as Conan and Dune Take Focus

Funcom is shrinking its world down to two deserts.

The Norwegian developer has announced a restructuring that puts nearly all of its attention on Conan Exiles and Dune: Awakening, its two survival sandboxes. That narrower focus comes with a cost: an unspecified number of employees will lose their jobs. On top of that, the studio's chief executive is on his way out.

It's a lot of upheaval for one announcement, and it lands at an odd moment. Both games are still active and still getting new content. That hasn't stopped Funcom from deciding that the company it has today is bigger than the company it needs tomorrow.

Two Games, One Smaller Studio

The language in Funcom's press release is careful, as these things usually are. The studio says it is aligning "its organization with this new focus" and that this will mean "reducing the size of the organization and, sadly, saying goodbye to valued colleagues."

What it doesn't say is how many people are affected. Funcom states that the process "begins now," and that it won't share more details until everything has concluded, citing respect for the employees involved. So for the moment there is no headcount, no list of affected teams, and no indication of which projects, if any, are being dropped to make room for the new plan.

What is clear is where the remaining resources will go. Conan Exiles has been around for years and is still being expanded, most recently with the second part of its Giant-Kings update. Dune: Awakening is the newer and bigger bet, and Funcom has evidently decided that keeping both running is the job now.

A New Name at the Top

The other half of the news concerns leadership. CEO Rui Casais will step down by the end of the year. His replacement is Scott Junior, currently Funcom's chief product officer.

Casais framed the changes as a matter of structure rather than failure. In his statement, he explained that "moving from full production into long-term post-launch development and operations requires a different organization." In other words, building a game and running one are not the same task, and they don't require the same number of people.

He also acknowledged the human side of that shift. "While we would have wanted everyone who helped build Dune: Awakening to continue with us, we cannot sustain the size and structure required during peak development as we move into this next phase," Casais said.

That's an honest admission, and an uncomfortable one. The people being let go are, at least in part, the people who made the game Funcom now wants to support.

Not the First Time

If this sounds familiar, there's a reason. Back in 2025, Funcom laid off Dune: Awakening developers as the team was preparing the game's console release. That round of cuts happened even though the game's launch had gone largely well.

The console version did eventually arrive, and Dune: Awakening picked up a million new players after its console launch. Success, it seems, has not protected the team behind it on either occasion.

Our Take

Casais' reasoning is not new. Plenty of studios staff up heavily to finish a big game, then shrink once it moves into live operations. What stands out here is that Funcom has now cut staff around Dune: Awakening twice, both times while the game appeared to be doing well. For players, that suggests the studio is betting on lean, ongoing support rather than ambitious new projects.

The practical question for Conan Exiles and Dune: Awakening fans is whether a smaller team can keep updates coming at the pace both communities expect. It's worth watching what Scott Junior prioritizes once he takes over, and whether Funcom reveals which teams were hit once the process wraps up. Until those details arrive, the impact on either game is impossible to judge.