Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics is the most recent subsidiary of Embracer Group to be hit with cuts, with the studio saying yesterday on Twitter that ten workers needed to be let go “due to an internal restructuring”.
And, at Embracer’s annual basic assembly (which you’ll watch on YouTube), CEO Lars Wingefors has acknowledged that the corporate might want to “continue making tough decisions” to ensure that the corporate to turn out to be “more cost-efficient” (thanks, Game Developer). Wingefors reiterated that these cuts have been projected again in June, and is “confident to deliver on the targets we set out for the end of the fiscal year,” which implies the cuts will proceed till at the least March 2024.
Crystal Dynamics was a part of Embracer’s massive cope with Square Enix again in May 2022 the place it additionally acquired Square Enix Montréal and Eidos-Montréal. But this additionally got here a yr after the corporate purchased Gearbox — the developer of Borderlands — and months earlier than it acquired the Lord of the Rings IP and an enormous vary of different studios.
With yesterday’s announcement, Crystal Dynamics additionally requested that if any studio has positions open in “Brand Direction, Creative Services, Community, or IT” to succeed in out to them.
Senior model supervisor Nick Edwards is likely one of the names affected by the layoffs together with communications director Adam Kahn and social media supervisor Neha Nair (by way of Eurogamer).
Wingefors mentioned in at this time’s AGM that the choice to both shut or downsize lots of the groups is “tough from many standpoints”, and that Embracer might need extra luck by attempting to promote its larger corporations and “high-value assets”. Just final week, rumours circulated that the studio was weighing up the choice to promote Gearbox.
Crystal Dynamics wasn’t the one studio to endure yesterday because of Embracer’s spending and cuts, as Beamdog — the studio behind MythForce — misplaced a handful of names. And there’s additionally the closure of Saint’s Row developer Volition, too. It’s a turbulent time at Embracer, and an increasing number of, it has many questioning what occurred with that spending over the previous few years.
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