Roblox rival and Deus Ex dev the latest to be hit by video game layoffs

In the wake of the Fortnite layoffs, a number of studios have followed suit, with a couple even shutting down completely.

Perhaps nothing best exemplifies how dire a state the games industry is in than the fact that even Fortnite is struggling to turn a profit, with Epic Games recently letting go 1,000 employees.

At the time, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney tried to offer a positive spin on this, saying on X that other game developers would see a ‘stream of resumes’, suggesting that the staff he let go were talented enough to soon find new places of work.

The problem, though, is that Epic Games isn’t an outlier. So many other studios have been routinely letting go of staff, if not outright shutting down, with more following suit in the days after Epic’s layoffs.

Recently, Eidos-Montréal announced via LinkedIn it is reducing its workforce, cutting 124 jobs as a ‘result of changing project needs and impacts across production and support teams.’

Studio head David Anfossi, whose been a part of Eidos-Montréal for nearly 20 years, is also leaving though it sounds like his departure is on his own terms. At the time of writing, Anfossi has yet to issue a public statement about it.

Considering it already suffered layoffs just three months ago in December, the studio’s future prospects are bleaker than ever and lend further credence to the idea that it will exist as a support studio from now on, especially since Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier claims these latest layoffs coincide with the cancellation of an unannounced project that’s been in the works for years.

Eidos-Montréal’s last full release was the 2021 Guardians Of The Galaxy game, with it currently only assisting on Fable and Grounded 2 for Xbox.

Meanwhile, Rec Room, an online VR platform similar to Roblox, where you can create your own games, share them, and interact with others, has announced it’s shutting down on June 1 after 10 years of service.

A blog post on the Rec Room website says that, in that time, it managed to accrue over 150 million players and yet it ‘never quite figured out how to make Rec Room a sustainably profitable business.’

It adds, ‘With the recent shift in the VR market, along with broader headwinds in gaming, the path to profitability has gotten tough enough that we’ve made the difficult decision to shut things down.’

Smaller indie studios aren’t safe either as Ivy Road, the developer behind the cosy Wanderstop, is closing its doors today, explaining in a blog post that it tried and failed to find a publisher and funding for its next project.

It’s a similar story over at Polyarc, the developer responsible for Moss and its sequel, which are among the best VR games ever made. While the studio remains open, it’s said in a LinkedIn post that it too has had to cancel a ‘major project,’ prompting layoffs.

With so many games industry employees out of work and not enough job openings to go around, the sad reality is that most affected people will simply leave the business entirely, no matter how talented CEOs like Sweeney say they are.

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