It wouldn’t be a day in games without more companies upending the lives of developers just trying to do their jobs. Both Embracer Group-owned Crystal Dynamics and Ubisoft-owned Red Storm Entertainment are having not just layoffs but more layoffs, with Red Storm reportedly ceasing game development entirely. In the immortal words of everyone on the planet, what are we doing here?
In a LinkedIn post, Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics announced it will be laying off 20 people, “split between some development personnel and some central operations roles.” The studio wrote that
As our current projects move into new phases of development, we continuously take a hard look at our team structures to ensure they align with our long-term studio goals. While we always strive to transition our people into new roles whenever possible, we have unfortunately reached a point where these departures are necessary.
This is, somehow, the fourth layoff Crystal Dynamics has had in the past 12 months, having previously had three rounds of layoffs in 2025: 17 workers in March, some in August, and 30 in November.
Reports also came out today that Ubisoft is laying off over 100 developers at Red Storm Entertainment, which will reportedly cease game development and function in an IT support role instead. Red Storm, about to celebrate its 30th anniversary, started life developing Tom Clancy games before moving into VR and support. It was developing The Division Heartland before the free-to-play shooter’s cancellation in 2024, and contributed to XDefiant, which Ubisoft shut down last year.
According to IGN, today’s layoffs are
the third round of layoffs at Red Storm in as many years, following the loss of 19 jobs last year, and 45 positions across Red Storm and San Francisco back in 2024. Before these, and today's further 105 job losses, the company employed 180 people in 2022 — a figure the company has now decimated.
Neither of these layoffs came out of nowhere. In Red Storm’s case, the layoffs come amidst a massive restructuring at parent company Ubisoft, which has seen layoffs, game cancellations, and a 1200-person strike against changes in working conditions, including a return-to-office policy that some workers see as an effort to push them out.
Embracer Group bought Crystal Dynamics in 2022, alongside Square Enix Montreal and Eidos Montreal, during an acquisition spree that went bad after a $2 billion deal with Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games fell through. Embracer has closed or sold studios and laid off employees in droves since.
The problem here isn’t developers at Red Storm or Crystal Dynamics–it’s the people at the top foisting the consequences of their bad decision-making and endless hunger for profit off on their employees. How many go-arounds of trying to cut their ways to profitability do companies need to try before they realize “too many people making games” isn’t the problem they’re having?
Luke Plunkett
