It’s been a devastating week for the games industry as hundreds of employees have lost their jobs at Xbox as a result of a round of layoffs across parent company, Microsoft – layoffs that have totaled in excess of 9000. It’s been a depressingly regular story in the video games industry over the past few years, and it’s likely things are going to continue in this vein throughout the rest of 2025. It’s bleak out there.
Once seen as a recession-resistant field, developers and publishers have been making layoffs in significant numbers for the past few years; you may remember headlines noting 860 layoffs at Epic, 1800 redundancies at Unity. 900 by PlayStation, 530 at Riot – and even a previous 1900 by Xbox.
This week, Microsoft instigated an additional round of layoffs – that makes four rounds in under two years. Microsoft told Eurogamer these layoffs were “necessary to position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace.”
To help you process these seismic events, we have broken down the updates of the week into headers so you can more easily digest the land as it stands as we head into the holiday weekend of 4th July.
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Affected projects and personnel
Rare’s fantasy adventure Everwild, announced over six years ago and mostly kept quiet since, has reportedly been cancelled. Subsequently, Gregg Mayles – who has been at Rare for a massive 35 years – announced his departure from the company.
The reboot of Perfect Dark, developed by The Initiative, has been cancelled as part of the latest round of cuts at Microsoft. The reboot of Rare’s series was first announced back in December 2020, and has been in development at The Initiative ever since. After numerous setbacks, Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics was brought in to assist; but it seems the project will never see the light of day. Joanna Dark actor Alix Wilton Regan implored fans to use their voices to save Perfect Dark, after the game was cancelled by Microsoft earlier this week.
Romero Games, the small Irish game development studio set up by veteran games devs John Romero and Brenda Romero, had its funding pulled by Microsoft, ending development of an all-new shooter IP. Unconfirmed reports suggest the entire development team has been laid off.