But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
Another wave of layoffs at EA, and with them canceled projects. And the studio hit this time is none other than Respawn Entertainment.
The layoffs hit teams across the studio. Affected are the teams working on the Star Wars: Jedi series, Apex Legends, and employees working on two incubation projects. They broke the news to fans via Xitter:
The post notes the cancelation of two incubation projects that were in the works. One was actually canceled a few months back and was a multiplayer FPS. The other, however, was an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall univers, tentatively titled R7.
The 100 employees affected across the teams were a mix of developers, publishing, and QA workers for Apex Legends, as well as a smaller number of unspecified individuals working on Star Wars: Jedi and the incubation projects. When asked by IGN, EA refused to confirm the number of employees impacted, though they did state that they offered these workers 30 days to find a new opportunity inside the organization, and that they are endeavoring to find roles for all of these employees as they can internally.
For what it’s worth, Respawn will continue to work on Apex Legends, as well as the next Jedi game. They’re also supporting the development of Star Wars: Zero Company.
Also related, Respawn SVP of operations Daniel Suarez is moving up to general manager of Respawn, reporting directly to Vince Zampella. Zampella, Respawn’s founder, previously served as GM of the studio, as well as head of the Battlefield franchise. Zampella will continue on as group GM and EVP for both Battlefield and Respawn.
That said, it definitely hurts to see yet another Titanfall project get relegated to the trash bin. Titanfall 2 is one of those games that’s absolutely worth the price of admission, but it wasn’t exactly appreciated enough back when it launched.
The layoffs are, however, merely a part of a trend for the AAA space as of late. It almost seems like the end of the pandemic opened the floodgates, and the hemorrhage hasn’t stopped since. That said, EA does seem to try to avoid a brain drain, attempting to keep as many of these employees within the company as possible. That said, it’s almost certainly happening to some degrees, and it’s not much consolation if you’re out and there’s no other spot for you internally.
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