Take-Two Interactive has announced layoffs that will affect 5% of its workforce or around 600 employees, with games also being cancelled in a yet another sweeping set of redundancies to hit the industry.
28.03.2024 - 12:45 / eurogamer.net / Phil Spencer
Sega will shed 240 staff across its European studios, and sell off Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment as part of a cost-cutting drive.
The majority of job losses will be at Total War developer Creative Assembly and at the publisher's Sega Europe office. These follow earlier cuts to the UK-based Creative Assembly last year, after the cancellation of live-service shooter Hyenas.
The Vancouver-based Relic will become an independent studio, meanwhile, backed by an unnamed «external investor». In a statement posted to social media this morning, Relic confirmed Company of Heroes 3 support would continue. The developer has also recently faced layoffs, with 121 staff let go in May 2023.
Newscast: Why are there so many games industry layoffs? Newscast: Why are there so many video game industry layoffs?A «small number» of jobs will also go at Sega Hardlight, another UK studio, and the developer behind mobile game Sonic Dream Team.
Sega announced the changes this morning in a business update where it formally blamed a «rapidly changing» financial landscape, including «reactionary decline from the stay-at-home demand in Covid-19 and the economic downturn due to inflation, etc», meaning «profitability has been lowered».
In an email to Sega staff seen by Eurogamer, the company's European boss Jurgen Post apologised that this update had been made public prior to some staff hearing about the job losses personally.
«Due to the nature of this announcement and our legal obligations in Japan, we were unable to share any detail with you until now,» Post wrote. «That is far from ideal and means some of you may have read about this in the media or via social networks before seeing this email. If that is the case, I'm sorry.
»I want to sincerely apologise for the worry and understandable distress this news will cause, particularly for those directly affected," Post continued. «These decisions have been incredibly tough to make, and they follow meticulous consideration and deliberation with leadership teams across the business.
»Change is necessary to secure the future of our games business, and to ensure that we are well placed to deliver the best possible experiences to our players going forward."
Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently stated he was «concerned» over layoffs due to lack of industry growth, following the departure of 1900 people across Xbox and Activision Blizzard in January of this year. Across the video games industry as a whole, more than 15,000 people are thought to have been let go over the past 18 months.
For a detailed look at the business reasons behind the recent wave of video game industry layoffs, Eurogamer published a detailed explainer of what exactly is going on.
Take-Two Interactive has announced layoffs that will affect 5% of its workforce or around 600 employees, with games also being cancelled in a yet another sweeping set of redundancies to hit the industry.
Publisher Sega and developer Creative Assembly have revealed that the next expansion for Total War: Warhammer 3, titled Thrones of Decay, will be releasing on PC on April 30.
Star Wars Outlaws is set to launch later this year, and beyond offering an open world to explore, it's also going to allow players to step into the shoes of a scoundrel named Kay Vess. Needless to say, it's shaping up to be quite a departure from the lightsaber-swinging action we're used to from the recent Star Wars Jedi games, but the creative director of Outlaws says that the idea of having Jedi at the forefront of the game "didn't even enter the picture."
Warhorse Studios' new game will be revealed next week on April 18th, the Kingdom Come Deliverance developer has announced.
Publisher Deep Silver and developer Warhorse Studios will announce a new game on April 18 at 11:00 a.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. ET, the companies teased (2) on Twitter. You will be able to watch the reveal on YouTube and Twitch.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios will reveal a new game next week.
Warhorse Studios' new game will be revealed next week on April 18th, the Kingdom Come Deliverance developer has announced.
Sega and Creative Assembly have released the first proper trailer for Total War: Warhammer 3's forthcoming Thrones of Decay expansion, which pits the human Empire, Chaos Nurgle faction and industrious Dwarfs against each other in what the press release terms "a showdown of mohawks, maggots and machines". Alliteration, is it? Well, two can play at that (strategy) game: the new expansion explodes upon the extensive environments of this elaborate ex-tabletop experience with an eccentric... ensemble of new legendary lords, battle units and campaign features, plus various free bits for owners of the base game.
Do you love Spy x Family? Do you want to see the new film before everyone else? Great news: We’re giving Polygon readers a chance to see an advanced screening of Spy x Family Code: White!
Thrones of Decay, the upcoming expansion for strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3, will now be available to purchase as either three separate faction packs, or as a bundle at a discount. So, if you don’t fancy shelling out the full £19.10 for all three factions, you can grab new bits for either Nurgle, the Empire, or the Dwarfs for £7.49. If you do buy just one to start off with - say, to get a feel for the quality of Thrones of Decay as a package - you’ll get a 15% discount on the remaining two packs in the future.
Less than a day after the news that Take-Two Interactive would acquire Borderlands developer Gearbox Entertainment from the embattled Embracer Group, layoffs have already begun. In the hours since former Gearbox employees were made redundant, they've taken to Twitter, and while the total number of staff impacted remains hard to determine, it sounds significant.
SEGA has sold off primarily PC-based strategy game developer Relic Entertainment, and is in the process of cutting up to 240 jobs across its various UK studios. Relic, which makes the Company of War games, will become an independent studio moving forwards, and said in a short statement that it remains on good terms with its former parent company.