Following up on rumours from earlier today about layoffs at EA, the company has since confirmed that employees are being let go. According to IGN, these layoffs have largely impacted the Experiences team at EA. This includes the Fan Care team, as well as customer support and marketing teams.
In a statement, an EA spokesperson referred to the layoffs as being made to “align teams and allocate resources in service of driving future growth.” The move is meant to continue the company’s focus on “long-term strategic priorities.”
“We are treating our people with care and respect throughout this process, working to minimize impacts by helping affected employees explore new opportunities within the company when possible and providing support during the transition,” continued the statement.
Respawn had confirmed that some of its employees across the development teams for Apex Legends and the Star Wars Jedi franchise were being moved around. In its statement, Respawn also mentioned that it had cancelled two of its “early-stage” incubation projects. While not too many details about these cancelled titles have been confirmed so far, one of them was rumoured to be a multiplayer extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe. The game was codenamed R7 during its development.
The statement was followed by reports, courtesy of Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, that between 300 and 400 employees at EA were being laid off. Of these, around 100 are said to be employees at Respawn Entertainment.
A former employee of Respawn had revealed back in March that another incubation project at the studio had been cancelled. While not too many details were revealed at the time, the employee – former executive assistant and production coordinator at the studio, Emilee Evans – had said that it was a multiplayer shooter.
In the meantime, EA and Respawn are currently working on a major update to Apex Legends, referred to as a version 2.0 of the game. During EA’s quarterly earnings call back in February, EA CEO Andrew Wilson spoke about the trajectory of Apex Legends, and how future development will be focused on improving things for the game across three “core vectors”: community support, gameplay improvements, and a more comprehensive upgrade down the line.
“Sometime on a longer-term time horizon, there will be an even bigger, more meaningful update to that broader game experience,” Wilson said. “An Apex 2.0, if you will. This will not be the final incarnation of Apex.
Over the longer term, Wilson said that the company wants to continue supporting Apex Legends by making sure to hang on to the game’s core community while also forming new communities that might want to try out the game.
“And then longer-term, our expectation is that we’ll continue to expand what this franchise is and how we support a core community of highly competitive players and new communities that want to come and experience all the greatness that Apex has to offer,” he said.
Apex Legends is a free-to-play battle royale game available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.