Sony has announced that it’s laying off around 900 employees of 8% of its overall work force across the globe. In a year already plagued by layoffs and terminations from companies like Microsoft, it seems like Sony is also making some drastic cutbacks to its studios, resulting in the closure of its London studio as well as layoffs at Guerrilla Games, Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog.
Current Sony CEO Jim Ryan, who is expected to exit the company soon and step down from his role, recently posted a blog post explaining the layoffs and dire situation. 900 employees have been impacted in total, as Sony has “made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people.” The UK seems to have been hit the worst as PlayStation Studios London, responsible for several PS VR games, has now been completely closed.
Additionally, Horizon: Call of the Mountain developer Firesprite will also see “reductions” in its work force. According to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, Firesprite was working on a Twisted Metal live service game which has now reportedly been cancelled.
Despite some recent scuttlebutt suggesting that Twisted Metal was close to release, the game was in early development and wasn’t yet greenlit, per source
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) February 27, 2024
In a separate blog post, head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst confirmed that Horizon developer Guerrilla Games, Marvel’s Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games and The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog will all also be hit with layoffs.
Earlier this year, Microsoft laid off around 1,900 employees including many from its various Xbox studios like 343 Industries and Bethesda. The layoffs didn’t stop there, though. League of Legends studio Riot Games let go of 530 employees while Eidos Montreal also faced layoffs, resulting in a Deus Ex game being scrapped.
Source: Sony
