Sony is closing PlayStation London, the studio behind Blood & Reality, and shedding workers within the studios behind Horizon Name Of The Mountain.
Sony Interactive Leisure (SIE) revealed it would quickly begin “a discount of our general headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 folks” throughout all areas by way of an organizational restructuring. Most prominently affected is PlayStation Studios’ London Studio, finest identified for Blood & Reality and PlayStation VR Worlds on PSVR.
A letter from SIE’s outgoing president, Jim Ryan confirms the London Studio “will shut in its entirety,” coupled with a “discount in numerous capabilities throughout SIE within the UK.” Moreover, Horizon Name of the Mountain co-developers Guerrilla Video games and Firesprite – the latter of which was acquired by Sony in 2021 following The Playroom VR and The Persistence, additionally face “reductions” however not outright closure. Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios, confirmed Insomniac Video games, Naughty Canine and extra studios have been additionally affected.
PlayStation is one more division going through heavy layoffs, including to an already turbulent time inside gaming. The video games trade reportedly reached over 10,000 layoffs in 2023 alone. Earlier than this week, there had been over 6400 estimated job losses in 2024. Including to that is Till Daybreak: Rush of Blood and The Darkish Photos: Switchback VR developer Supermassive Video games, and Bloomberg studies “roughly 90” workers are at present in danger. It’s possible you’ll recall that simply earlier than Christmas, First Contact Leisure, who developed Firewall Extremely which was printed by SIE, shut down 4 months after launch.
In the present day’s announcement additionally throws renewed doubt on PlayStation VR2, which reached its first anniversary final week with bulletins for Zombie Military VR and Little Cities: Greater!. Whereas it is at present unknown if London Studio was creating something for PSVR 2, seeing two of Sony’s most skilled VR builders hit by layoffs will do little to encourage religion within the headset’s future.
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