Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics is the latest subsidiary of Embracer Group to be hit with cuts, with the studio announcing yesterday on Twitter that ten staff had to be let go "due to an internal restructuring".
And, at Embracer's annual general meeting (which you can watch on YouTube), CEO Lars Wingefors has stated that the company will need to "continue making tough decisions" in order for the company to become "more cost-efficient" (thanks, Game Developer). Wingefors reiterated that these cuts were projected back in June, and is "confident to deliver on the targets we set out for the end of the fiscal year," which means the cuts will continue until at least March 2024.
Crystal Dynamics was part of Embracer's big deal with Square Enix back in May 2022 where it also acquired Square Enix Montréal and Eidos-Montréal. But this also came a year after the company bought Gearbox — the developer of Borderlands — and months before it acquired the Lord of the Rings IP and a huge range of other studios.
With yesterday's announcement, Crystal Dynamics also requested that if any studio has positions open in "Brand Direction, Creative Services, Community, or IT" to reach out to them.
Senior brand manager Nick Edwards is one of the names affected by the layoffs along with communications director Adam Kahn and social media manager Neha Nair (via Eurogamer).
Wingefors said in today's AGM that the decision to either close or downsize many of the teams is "tough from many standpoints", and that Embracer might have more luck by trying to sell its bigger companies and "high-value assets". Just last week, rumours circulated that the studio was weighing up the option to sell Gearbox.
Crystal Dynamics wasn't the only studio to suffer yesterday as a result of Embracer's spending and cuts, as Beamdog — the studio behind MythForce — lost a handful of names. And there's also the closure of Saint's Row developer Volition, too. It's a turbulent time at Embracer, and more and more, it has many wondering what happened with that spending over the past few years.