When it rains, it pours. Today there were several announcements made across the gaming sphere of layoffs in several studios. These layoffs are ranging from the large AAA studios, all the way down into the smaller indie studios. Let’s dive into the news, shall we?

Epic Games Laying Off 1,000+ Employees

The first announcement came from Epic Games, known for their battle-royale survival shooter Fortnite. However, it does appear that anything was posted to Epic’s official social media pages (understandably so).

An official post was made on Epic’s website, sharing the memo that was sent to all Epic employees. In this announcement from Founder and CEO of Epic Games Tim Sweeney, the announcement started by stating “Today we’re laying off over 1000 Epic employees. I’m sorry we’re here again.” At the end of the day, there really isn’t a nice way to sugar-coat this.

Sweeney went on to further state:

“Some of the challenges we’re facing are industry-wide challenges: slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics; current consoles selling less than last generation’s; and games competing for time against other increasingly-engaging forms of entertainment. And some of our challenges are unique to Epic. Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we’ve had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season; we’re only in the early stages of returning to mobile and optimizing Fortnite for the world’s billions of smartphones; and in being the industry’s vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers.“

The statement ended with Sweeney stating that more would be discussed in an another meeting this Thursday (March 26th) to discuss the roadmap of these pending layoffs. Obviously, tragic for the individuals that will be impacted by this decision, but what interests me more is this announcement after hearing the news around the upcoming Peak skin.

Dark Outlaw Games Closed by PlayStation

Not long after the announcement from Epic Games, news trickled down that Sony would be closing Dark Outlaw Games. News of this was initially leaked by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier.

Dark Outlaw Games, which was formed in 2025 by former Call of Duty veteran Jason Blundell, was opened as an “incubation” studio for PlayStation. Truly, this studio, due to its recency, never even really saw the light of day (for lack of a better term). As of right now, there does not seem to be a clear picture of how many individuals this will impact.

Several French Nacon Subsidiaries to Shutter

In the last round of depressing announcements, it was noted that several Nacon subsidiaries, all based in France, had filed for insolvency, with coming layoffs potential.

The specific studios impacted were:

• Spiders Studio – Known for their work on Steelrising and GreedFall 2: The Dying World
• Kylotonn – Known for their work on the WRC (World Rally Championship) series
• Cyanide – Best known for their work on the Pro Cycling Manager series and Tour de France series, as well as Blood Bowl

All three studios have filed for insolvency with the Lille Métropole Commercial Court. Along with this filing was a request for an opening of judicial reorganization proceedings. While we may not have a clear picture of how many individuals will be impacted, Nacon as a whole employees over 1000 individuals across 16 development studios. Suffice it to say, it won’t be a smaller number, sadly.

Be sure to stay connected with Gamer Social Club as further news on these coming changes is released.