Old Archives

About two dozen people were laid off.

Double Fine Productions just laid off 23 employees. Double Fine announced these layoffs about three weeks after their return to independence from Microsoft. The studio behind games such as Stacking and Psychonauts made the announcement in a brief post to Bluesky by studio lead Tim Schafer. ...

Back to Doom (2016) size.

It has been one hell of a week for XBOX owned studios. Around 1,600 employees have been laid off, with the promise of another 1,600 layoffs to come in the months ahead. One of those studios, id Software, was apparently one of the hardest hit with a reported 50% of the studio laid off.

There were reports saying that most, if not all, of the people working on id Tech were included in the layoffs. Earlier this week, Kotaku reported that the id Tech...

Avowed sequel canceled.

A new report from Bloomberg sheds more light on what is going on at Obsidian Entertainment in the wake of the mass layoffs that impacted all XBOX studios in some capacity this week. We know already that roughly 25% of Obsidian employees were laid off this week. Due to these extensive layoffs, several projects have been canceled.

According to Bloomberg, one of the known cancelations at Obsidian was a sequel to 2025's Avowed. The report says that...

The MMO teams from ZeniMax and Bethesda were hit "particularly hard."

Several Fallout developers have shared that they lost their jobs as part of yesterday's mass layoffs across all of XBOX. Many of those who shared word of their layoff were quest designers on Fallout 76. This includes the former leader writer for Fallout: London, Stephanie Zachariadis, who was hired by Bethesda Game Studios in 2021.

Zachariadis says, "After five years, I was just laid...

Laid off a day before the new DLC released.

Update as of July 8, 2026: According to updated reporting, the number of employees laid off from id Software has now hit at least 136.

A WARN Notice filed in Texas confirms that 158 people were laid off from ZeniMax just within the state of Texas. The notice was sent to Gamedeveloper.com after a request was made by the Texas Workforce Commission.

Of those 158 employees that were laid off, 136 come from id Software....

No department was spared.

One of the biggest workhorses for XBOX was Obsidian Entertainment. The studio somehow managed to release three titles in 2025 alone: Avowed, Grounded 2 (in Early Access), and The Outer Worlds 2. Yet even Obsidian was not spared from the recent layoffs across all of XBOX.

According to sources speaking with Kotaku, somewhere between 60 and 70 employees were laid off. The layoffs include producers, artists, designers, programmers, QA testers, writers,...

And obviously the Blade game might get canceled.

Arkane Studios joins four other XBOX owned studios that are being put on the chopping block. According to "sources familiar with Microsoft's plans" talking to The Verge, Microsoft is "currently weighing closing at least five studios, including the developers behind Marvel's Blade."

Those sources tell The Verge that Microsoft has plans to cancel Blade as part of their monumental cost cutting measures...

Studio head Justin Truman also leaving.

Mass layoffs have started at Bungie. These are the layoffs that employees at Bungie were made aware of almost exactly one month ago. These layoffs also come one month after Bungie announced that they were ending active development on Destiny 2, effectively bringing an end to the Destiny franchise.

Bungie officially announced that a significant number of layoffs were now underway at the studio. ...

July will be brutal.

Once again, XBOX is planning to carry out another round of mass layoffs across their various studios and divisions. This is according to a new report from Bloomberg, and anybody capable of seeing the writing on the walls since Asha Sharma took over as head of XBOX.

Bloomberg, citing multiple anonymous sources, say that layoffs will arrive after the end of Microsoft's current fiscal year. The end of the fiscal year is June 30th for Microsoft. These...

For those that remain, the focus will be on Marathon only.

Sony is "planning a significant number of layoffs" at Bungie, according to a new report from Jason Schreier at Bloomberg. This unfortunate yet not wholly expected news comes mere hours after Bungie announced that they are ending development on Destiny 2.

Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg's report says that there is no new project currently being worked on at Bungie. Bloomberg's sources state that...

Can this industry go one damn week without layoffs?

Eidos-Montreal is laying off 124 employees, according to a LinkedIn post made on Monday, March 30. This now marks at least the third round of layoffs at Eidos-Montreal since January 2024. It was in January 2024 that 97 people were laid off by parent company Embracer Group. In March 2025 there were 75 people laid off.

The development studio announced that they are undergoing a "reduction in workforce" that...

At least the severance is generous.

Epic Games just laid off over 1,000 employees today as the company blames "the downturn in Fortnite engagement" as a major reason why. The statement issued by Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney says that the company is "spending significantly more" than what they are making. These layoffs are combined with "over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles."

Today's...

Will just be a minor support studio.

Ubisoft has ceased all game development at the North Carolina based Red Storm Entertainment. As a result of this decision, 105 employees have been laid off.

According to information shared with Games Industry from an anonymous Ubisoft source, the studio will technically remain open but the few that remain employed there will be working on the Snowdrop engine, IT support, and customer relations.

The last couple of titles...

Don't release a game? Fired. Release a well-received game that breaks sales records? Believe it or not, also fired.

Electronic Arts has laid off an undisclosed number of people from across all of the studios that fall under the Battlefield Studios umbrella. Developers have been let go from Criterion, DICE, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studio.

According to what IGN reports, employees are being laid off due to a "realignment" within Battlefield Studios. IGN's reporting...

The CEOs should start looking in a mirror.

You'll never guess what just happened again at MindsEye development studio, Build a Rocket Boy. More layoffs have hit the troubled studio as executives continue to blame "espionage and corporate sabotage" for the launch of a game some might consider the worst game they ever played in the modern era.

Prior to the launch of MindsEye, co-CEO Mark Gerhard claimed that there was a "concerted effort" to trash both...