League of Legends publisher Riot Games lays off over 500 employees, shutters Riot Forge

On January 4, I received an email I had both been anticipating and dreading for months. My copy of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, one of my most anticipated games of 2024, had dropped into my inbox. Usually, that moment would give me a jolt of energy. I love critiquing games that have real substance, and I was still chewing on 2020’s unforgettable Yakuza: Like a Dragon several years later. That RPG tells a thematically rich story about an unlikely hero finding his confidence amid a quest to take on Japan’s criminal underworld.

Reikon Games, the developers behind cyberpunky top-down shooter Ruiner, have reportedly become the latest studio to lay off dozens of staff, with over half of the Polish indie said to have lost their jobs earlier this week.

Reikon Games has reportedly laid off 60 to 70 people, equating to 56 percent of the company.

Islands of Insight, an open-world puzzle game by Behvaiour Interactive and Lunarch Studios, will launch on February 13. It’s coming exclusively to PC and will retail for $30. A public demo for it will be available from February 5 to February 12 on Steam.

According to IGN, Microsoft has fired 1,900 employees from its video game divisions including Xbox and Activision Blizzard. The layoffs affect almost 9% of the 22,000 employees at the company. In a memo to staff, Microsoft Gaming CEO claims the layoffs come after leadership at Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard identified areas of overlap following the recent acquisition of Activision, Blizzard, and King.

Microsoft has laid off 1,900 employees from its gaming division—mainly roles at Activision Blizzard King, but also some at Xbox and ZeniMax Media.

Outriders and Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly has joined the long list of developers and companies in the games industry that have been hit with layoffs, less than a month into 2024. As per a report by Kotaku, the studio has laid off over 30 people.

People Can Fly, the developer behind the likes of Outriders and Bulletstorm, has reportedly laid off «over 30 people» working on a currently unannounced game — codenamed Project Gemini — that's set to be published by Square Enix.

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.

Earlier this month, I witnessed a digital miracle. In a press briefing ahead of CES, Nvidia showed off a demo for its Ace microservice, an AI suite capable of generating fully voiced AI characters. I watched in awe as a demoist spoke to an in-game NPC through a microphone, only to have the digital character respond in real time. It was a true sci-fi feat, but there was one question: How did it learn to do that?

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.

It’s going to be a busy year for Xbox Game Pass subscribers. The subscription service is expected to get an influx of high-profile games in 2024.Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 and Avowed are leading the charge, and there’s a good chance that we’ll see a lot of Activision Blizzard games on the service soon. What’s always more exciting to me, though, are the games I’ve never heard of. Some of my favorite Game Pass titles over the year have been left-field indies that I learned about the very day they launched. Call them pleasant surprises.