Illuvium says six months of cuts bought it another year as MMO becomes its main remaining bet

Illuvium co-founder and CEO Kieran Warwick said Aug. 21 that six months of cost reductions and a further wage cut had restored more than 12 months of operating runway for the web3 gaming studio.

Warwick said the remaining workforce is now almost entirely focused on an MMO and that most team members have been with Illuvium for more than three years. He did not disclose the studio's current cash balance or monthly burn.

Illuvium last published a monthly burn figure in December 2024, putting the cost at about $900,000 after its administrators stopped taking salaries and cut overall wages by another $85,000. It also said then that it expected to seek additional capital around March 2025, but Warwick did not say whether new financing contributed to the latest runway calculation.

The new estimate prompted a social media claim that Illuvium had raised $132 million. Capital Brief reported about $60 million in cumulative funding in 2024, while an Immutable release reported $72 million in gross NFT land sales in 2022. Adding customer land-sale proceeds to reported funding conflates two different categories.

Illuvium's recent governance disclosures do not provide a current financial breakdown. July council minutes placed discussions of operational costs and staff restructuring, as well as treasury and revenue distribution, under nondisclosure agreements.

The MMO absorbs most of the remaining team

Official council minutes from February said the studio had reduced the MMO's scope and was targeting a December 2026 launch.

The plan emphasized reusing existing assets, procedural dungeons and boss encounters, while scheduling player-versus-player features and additional combat polish for after launch.

Illuvium is also aiming to release several smaller products in 2026, Warwick said. The list includes a final Celebrations collection for Beyond Set 1, Beyond Chaos, Primal Tactica and Loadout.

Warwick said an outside studio developing Primal Tactica under an Illuvium intellectual-property license would show the game at Steam Next Fest in October, with most revenue going to Illuvium. Steam lists Primal Tactica for early access in the fourth quarter.

Warwick said Loadout would distribute tokens to the Illuvium staking contract to encourage ILV and ILV-ETH staking, but it has not yet announced a launch date. ILV was down 67.55% over the year through Aug. 21, according to CryptoSlate data.