A new update reveals EA is reportedly laying off a team of over 200 QA employees working onApex Legends, months before the official end of their contract. Since its debut in 2019, the battle royale from Respawn Entertainment and EA has risen to become one of the most popular games in the world. The game regularly boasts hundreds of thousands of players on Steam and evenspawned a short-lived mobile version, scheduled to end service later this year. Now, however, a recent report casts a shadow over the game’s success.
The reveal regarding layoffs at EA comes as both Respawn and EA share ambitious intentions forApex Legends' future. WithApexrecently launching its 16th competitive season, design director Evan Nikolich previously expressed his desire to see the game last for 20 years, akin to massively popular shooterCounter-Strike.Apex Legendshas continued its rampant success with Season 16, boasting a record Steam player count of over 500,000 coinciding with the new season. Now, however, a report from TheGamer reveals EA will be laying off over 200 QA workers.
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A recent report from TheGamerreveals statements by several affected employees, confirming the layoffs by EA with no attempt to move the employees onto other games. The layoffs are reportedly centralized in EA’s Baton Rouge quality verification team and multiple employees have expressed the sentiment that they had been “replaced” by EA’s UK-based QA team.TheApex Legendsteamhad been working alongside the UK-based team to train them for the job, feeling that EA was having them “train their replacements.”
EA reportedly did not provide reasoning for the hundreds of surprise layoffs handed out to the Baton Rouge team, according to some of the workers' testimonials. TheApex LegendsQA teamin Baton Rouge will only be provided with 60 days of severance pay, despite the fact contracts for the team run through August. The layoffs are also claimed to have come from EA instead of Respawn, with some managers surprised at the sudden firings. EA has not made an official statement regarding the Baton Rouge team’s layoffs.
Throughout recent years, mass layoffs have become a normal thing within the gaming industry with companies often shedding significant portions of staff or teams.Esports organization The Guardrecently announced a string of layoffs with the Overwatch League’s Los Angeles Gladiators and Call of Duty League’s Los Angeles Guerillas potentially folding. Esports as a whole has seen major funding issues lately affecting top-level organizations like Team SoloMid. TheApex Legendslayoffs serve as the most recent entry in a worrying trend for the gaming industry.
Apex Legendsis available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and mobile devices.
