It may not be incredibly surprising news given the current state of the gaming industry that Crystal Dynamics laid off some of its staff, but so it is. The studio, which gained notoriety mainly for their work on the rebooted Tomb Raider series and Marvel’s Avengers, has had some difficulties this year. Yesterday, they announced on LinkedIn that they were undergoing restructuring and had to “part ways” with some of their team. Fans of Tomb Raider may recall that Amazon Games (yes, that Amazon) confirmed that they would be publishing the next installment of the series back in 2022 and Crystal Dynamics cites optimizing development of the game as one of the reasons for the layoffs.  

This also comes with the grim context of the fact that Crystal Dynamics has made two other rounds of layoffs this year, which doesn’t paint a nice picture for their current development projects, despite the studio’s assurances. Earlier this summer, Perfect Dark, a new entry to the world of the original 2000 first-person shooter the studio was working on, was cancelled due to Microsoft making layoffs on their side and shuttering The Initiative, the studio they were partnered with on the project. There were attempts to save it with negotiations taking place between Microsoft and Take Two Interactive, although those ultimately failed. It’s not entirely clear exactly why Crystal Dynamics has made so many layoffs, and their explanations so far have amounted to vague disclosures like “evolving business conditions” and the optimization claims referenced above.

It seems like Crystal Dynamics’ actions have not been taken well by the community, and have received criticism both on the studio’s LinkedIn post and broadly on other social media platforms. Users comment about the worrying nature of their repeated layoffs this year, issue condolences to the employees affected by them, and make snide remarks about what they see as corporate mismanagement. For more on recent layoffs in the gaming industry, check out our articles on Rockstar’s layoffs, legal proceedings, and employee kickback.