As reported by Jason Schreier, citing an anonymous source familiar with the layoffs, up to 400 EA employees have been let go as part of this round, accounting for roughly 2.5-3% of the company’s 13,700-strong workforce.
In a follow-up statement, EA spokesman Justin Higgs confirmed the layoffs, saying, “As part of our continued focus on our long-term strategic priorities, we’ve made select changes within our organization that more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth.”
As if that wasn’t enough, percentage-wise, the layoffs hit Respawn significantly harder than EA as a whole. According to the studio’s official LinkedIn page, Respawn had between 500 and 1,000 employees before the cuts, so losing 100 amounts to a 10-20% reduction in staff.
Among the confirmed developers impacted by the layoffs are Respawn’s Development Director Lauren Kamieniecki, Principal Writer Kevin Lee, Dialogue Editor Francis Lee, Animation Director Richard Pince, Senior Animator Guilherme Paiva, Level Designer Aaron Stump, Senior Character Artist Iouri Rybalka, and Senior Environment Artist Giovanni Martinez.
Shortly before Schreier’s report and EA’s subsequent confirmation of the layoffs, Respawn also released a statement of its own, announcing the cancellation of two unannounced games that were in early development – including the long-rumored extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe, codenamed R7, whose existence had previously been speculated based on EA job postings. As of right now, it’s unclear whether one of the two canceled games is the “incubation project” Respawn shut down back in March, or if the total number of unannounced projects the studio has scrapped has now reached three.
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