Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, Unreal Engine 5, and Gears of War, is reportedly laying off 900 staff members, which represent 16% of the total workforce. The reports follow after multiplayer shooter Hyenas has been canceled by Sega, with Total War and Alien Isolation developer Creative Assembly also announcing job losses and redundancies.
One of the biggest battle royale games in the world, Fortnite is the flagship shooter from Epic, which also develops and licenses Unreal Engine 5, operates the Epic Games Store, and develops the Gears of War series. Around 40% of Epic Games’ stock is owned by Chinese parent company Tencent, while the majority of the company belongs to founder and CEO Tim Sweeney.
The latest Fortnite update, Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 4, began on Friday, August 25, as the multiplayer game enters its eighth year after launching in 2017. Despite Fortnite’s enormous success and the growing popularity and use of Unreal Engine 5 among other game developers, according to Bloomberg, Epic Games is planning to lay off 16% of its employees.
“Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, is laying off a whopping 16% of employees (or around 900 people),” Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier says. On Wednesday, September 27, Bloomberg reported that Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, planned to retire, something which was later confirmed by both Sony and Ryan himself.
According to the report, a person “familiar with the matter” tells Bloomberg that they were made aware of the cuts via an internal memo.
The report comes on the same day that Sega announced it is canceling FPS game Hyenas, leading to job losses at developer Creative Assembly.
PCGamesN will update this story with further information.
