League Of Legends Company Riot Games Lays Off 530 Employees

Developer Rocksteady Studios has taken its new live-service multiplayer shooter set in the Batman: Arkham universe, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice Leauge, offline after Early Access players hit a «story completion» bug. While the standard edition of the game doesn't hit PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC until this Friday, February 2, players who purchase the more expensive Deluxe Edition, which costs $99.99 compared to the Standard Edition's $69.99 price tag, can jump in three days early. 

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Black Forest Games, the studio behind the recent Destroy All Humans! 1 and 2 remakes, has reportedly laid off about 50 people. This news comes from Kotaku, which learned from a source with knowledge of the situation that these layoffs were announced yesterday, January 24, and that more information about them would be provided next week. 

Update, 9:51 a.m. ET, 1/25/24:

The Final Fantasy XIV live-action television series first announced back in 2019 is «dead,» according to the production company that was working on it. Hivemind, which also worked on Netflix's The Witcher, was developing the series with Sony Pictures Television, but co-founder Dinesh Shamdasani revealed on Twitter that the project is dead when asked about it, as reported by PC Gamer. 

People Can Fly, the developer behind 2021's surprise shooter hit Outriders, has laid off more than 30 employees. This news comes by way of Kotaku, which reports that its source with knowledge of the situation said the job cuts affected only staff working on an unannounced game at the studio, codenamed Project Gemini, that is to be published by Square Enix. 

Koji Kondo, longtime composer for The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. franchises, will be inducted into the Academy of Interactvie Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame at this year's D.I.C.E. Awards. The presentation will take place at the 27th annual D.I.C.E. Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada, during the ceremony on Thursday, February 15, at 8 p.m. PT/11 p.m. ET. 

Nintendo has announced that it will stream full pre-recorded concerts for The Legend of Zelda series and its Splatoon franchise next month. Both concerts were set to be a part of Nintendo Live events in December of last year and this month, too, in Tokyo, Japan, but these events were canceled over safety concerns, as reported by VideoGamesChronicle. Now, everyone will be able to watch these concerts when they hit the official Nintendo YouTube channel next month. 

The new year continues to be a difficult one for the games industry, with Riot Games announcing layoffs affecting about 11% of their global workforce, or around 530 people. The company is also trimming its portfolio, shutting down Riot Forge, pulling back on some other projects, and recentering on its four core live titles: League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, Valorant, and Wild Rift.

Riot Games is laying off about 530 employees, which represents 11% of its workforce, the Tencent-owned company announced on Monday. The League of Legends maker is also sunsetting its five-year-old publishing group, Riot Forge.

Riot Games have announced that they will shortly lay off "about 530" people, or 11 per cent of their global workforce, so as to "create focus and move us towards a more sustainable future", in the words of CEO Dylan Jadeja. The "biggest impact" will be felt outside of core development, though they'll affect at least one major internal team - the developers of Legends Of Runeterra. Riot are also binning off the Riot Forge publishing label, under which third-party developers create smaller-scale games based on Riot's own intellectual properties.

League of Legends maker Riot Games is laying off around 530 members of staff around the world.