Another day, another set of layoffs it seems. Iron Galaxy layoffs are the latest to strike the industry as the studio responsible for a lot of porting work, co-development, and the creation of the free-to-play game Rumbleverse and fighting game Killer Instinct has let go of over 60 people.
In an announcement on their site, they mention the state of the industry which has seen many layoffs, many studio closures, and a lot of games fail to perform, including Rumbleverse. This follows the layoffs yesterday at Sumo Group who were a similar type of studio that had focused on co-development and services, before expanding to do more their own work. Through the last two years they had managed to keep their team together, but they no longer have the room to continue without cutting some of their staff, after having taken many steps over the past few years.
Today, Iron Galaxy is parting ways with some of our developers and support staff. In total, we have reduced our employee base by 66 people. This was a means of last resort for us. It’s a measure we do not take lightly to enable our long-term survival.
Iron Galaxy has four studios, and the contraction comes after they had spent the years growing in the lead-up to Rumbleverse as they attempted to build doing original projects on top of their co-development, and porting work. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, they hired 100 people, which took them near 300 people in the studio, thus this represents likely somewhere between 20 and 25% of the headcount among employees.
Beyond their work on Killer Instinct and Rumbleverse, many ports for PC and Switch bear the marks of Iron Galaxy's work. Titles like The Last of Us Part 1 on PC were ported by them, and they helped Blizzard bring games like Overwatch, and Diablo 3 to Nintendo Switch. Other titles that they have done some work on include Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy, Skyrim, and Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves.
In the note, the studio concludes by saying,
At this moment, our focus is on our teammates who have begun a journey toward their next role. We thank them for working with us. We’ll be doing everything we can to support them in the search for the next phase of their careers. Keep an eye out for them if you need good people. We are sorry to see them go.
We wish everyone impacted by layoffs over the past few years the best, and our hearts go out to all the people impacted by the Iron Galaxy layoffs. Here's hoping you find the perfect job for you just around the corner.
