Sledgehammer Games loses 30 percent of staff, main office as Microsoft layoffs hit MW3 dev

Microsoft recently laid off nearly 1,900 employees of Activision Blizzard, and its subsidiary Sledgehammer Games seems to have been impacted heavily. The company lost nearly a third of its staff and will be closing its main office and moving to remote until a new one is found.

Initially after IGN reported today that Microsoft had terminated 1,900 Activision employees, the specifics of the impact the layoffs had on Sledgehammer Games were unknown. Now it appears the developer has lost 30 percent of its total staff and will be closing down its main offices, according to InsiderGaming.

The MW3 devs will be moving to work from home, likely until the end of 2024. The decision was reached during a company town hall meeting and the measure will be in effect until an appropriate space is found near the location of the current Sledgehammer offices.

Some employees have called the decision a “slap in the face,” say sources for InsiderGaming, and the situation is contrasted with Activision’s December 2023 call for QA workers to return to offices full-time. At the time Activision was criticized by the ABK Workers Alliance, which claimed that even those employees who medically couldn’t attend office work were ignored even when providing the proper documentation.

But that isn’t the only thing that has been stirring within Sledgehammer Games. The studio was caught in the storm of the Microsoft layoffs and lost nearly a third of its staff. Some teams, particularly the QA, are reportedly getting culled. Managing editor of WindowsCentral Jez Corden claimed on X to have heard from sources that Microsoft plans to outsource QA abroad and keep only the essentials domestically.

The layoffs have resulted in around eight to nine percent of Activision leaving the company.