Square Enix, the developer-publisher behind this year's Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, is set to lay off an unspecified number of employees across its U.S. and European offices, which are headquartered in California and the United Kingdom, respectively, this week. According to those in attendance, Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu delivered this news in a company-wide meeting, as first reported by VideoGamesChronicle.
Layoffs such as these were suspected following Square Enix's latest financial earnings report, which includes a three-year company reboot plan with an "aggressive" multiplatform release strategy after a slide mentioned "structural reforms." You can see the slide below:
As you can see above, as part of Square Enix's plan to rebuild its overseas business divisions from the ground up, the company "began optimizing costs at its European and American offices via structural reforms." After more than 10,000 layoffs across game studios and publishers this year, it's easy to read between the lines – structural reforms sound a lot like "layoffs," and now VGC has confirmed as much.
The publication reports these layoffs will happen over the course of the next month, with those affected set to find out this week. The total number of expected layoffs is not known, but VGC's sources say staff was told it will mostly affect those working in publishing, IT, and Square Enix's Collective indie games division.
U.K. employees laid off will enter into a "one-month consultancy period" in accordinace with local U.K. law, while affected U.S. staff could be out of their jobs potentially before the end of the month.
These layoffs join a string of other disheartening 2024 layoffs and closures, which now total more than 10,000 in just the first five months of the year.
Earlier this month, Xbox closed four Bethesda studios, including Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks and Redfall studio Arkane Austin. Take-Two Interactive closed Rollerdrome studio Roll7 and Kerbal Space Program 2 studio Intercept Games alongside major layoffs to its indie-publisher Private Division label. That same week, we learned Deliver Us Mars developer Keoken Interactive had laid off nearly its entire staff.
Elsewhere in the year, EA laid off roughly 670 employees across all departments, resulting in the cancellation of Respawn's Star Wars FPS game. PlayStation laid off 900 employees across Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, and more, closing down London Studio in the process, too. The day before, Until Dawn developer Supermassive Games announced it laid off 90 employees.
At the end of January, we learned Embracer Group had canceled a new Deus Ex game in development at Eidos-Montréal and laid off 97 employees in the process. Also in January, Destroy All Humans remake developer Black Forest Games reportedly laid off 50 employees and Microsoft announced it was laying off 1,900 employees across its Xbox, Activision Blizzard, and ZeniMax teams, as well. Outriders studio People Can Fly laid off more than 30 employees in January, and League of Legends company Riot Games laid off 530 employees.
Lords of the Fallen Publisher CI Games laid off 10 percent of its staff, Unity will lay off 1,800 people by the end of March, and Twitch laid off 500 employees.
We also learned that Discord had laid off 170 employees, that layoffs happened at PTW, a support studio that's worked with companies like Blizzard and Capcom, and that SteamWorld Build company, Thunderful Group, let go of roughly 100 people. Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive also reportedly laid off 45 people, too.
[Source: VideoGamesChronicle]