A fresh round of layoffs from EA has hit the Apex Legends development team, with an unspecified number of people losing their roles.
Though yet to be confirmed by Respawn Entertainment or parent company EA, several employees shared their thoughts on social media, indicating further layoffs.
As spotted by PC Mag, numerous employees issued comments on X (formerly Twitter) about the development, including Apex Legends security analyst Conor Ford, who described the job axes as “so f***ed up” and that they were “tired of these f***ing layoffs.”
Respawn build engineer Tyler Owens wrote they don’t know how the decision-makers can sleep at night after “casually shattering” human lives. While level designer Aaron Stump said “it sucks” seeing colleagues losing their roles.
While it seems neither Ford, Owens, or Stump lost their roles, global social media lead Alex Ackerman announced she had been laid off, thanking the community for the “highlight of my life” working on the title. According to alphaIntel, one staff member said they were “tossed out like trash.”
EA’s layoffs across several developer brands have already hit Respawn, which canceled an FPS Star Wars title believed to be centered around The Mandalorian. It was also reported in February that over 100 Apex Legends testers were laid off via a Zoom call.
It has been a grim start to 2024 for the video game industry, with over 8,000 layoffs in just two and a half months, with the year ahead almost certain to surpass the figure of 10,000 layoffs across the entirety of 2023. The 2023 figures include various layoffs from EA, hitting Codemasters in December and around 800 employees in March.
Continued layoffs may not be the only major issue affecting the video game industry this year, as SAG-AFTRA strike action is on the edge amid concerns about the use of AI and how the technology could replace people.
