Sunless Sea developer Failbetter Games has delayed the launch of its upcoming crowdfunded sequel, Sunless Skies.

There's no new delivery date, but Failbetter has assured fans there was "no danger of us failing to deliver the project you backed".

The decision to delay the game from its previously-announced May arrival comes after a disappointing 2017 for the studio, with lower-than-expected sales of the game on Steam Early Access and four of the small team's staff being laid off as a result.

Skies "sold about 15 per cent as many copies as Sunless Sea in the comparable time period", Failbetter said in a Kickstarter update.

The studio said the game had gone into Early Access too quickly and blamed a "hugely different" marketplace to the one which Sunless Seas launched into back in 2014.

"Sunless Skies just isn't as visible as Sunless Sea was," Failbetter continued.

"With much regret, we have just completed a redundancy consultancy process and four of us are leaving as a result."

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Failbetter's Fallen London mobile app is being shut down and work is being solidified around the game's web version.

Fundbetter, the studio's initiative to help small narrative games, has been "retired" until further notice.

Sunless Sea will also get its last update for the forseeable future.