Marvel Rivals Director And Others Laid Off Just Months After The Hero Shooter Took Over The Charts – Kotaku

Marvel Rivals’ game director and others from the development team behind the hit hero shooter have been laid off. The dismissals have caught many by surprise as NetEase’s comic book blockbuster continues to dominate the charts on Steam and consoles months after its well-received launch.“This is such a weird industry…” wrote director Thaddeus Sasser on LinkedIn, whose job title currently reads “I help create billion-dollar franchises.” His post continued, “My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games…and were just laid off!”Marvel Rivals level designer Jack Burrows posted a similar message on the job-hunting website. Hey folks!” he wrote. “Welp, just got laid off from my job working on Marvel Rivals with NetEase. Was an enormous pleasure to work with my American coworkers who join me in this sad culling. Just couldn’t dodge that big boot I guess, no matter how big the success of the gig.” The size and location of the teams that worked on the hero shooter have been hard to pin down, and it’s not immediately clear what the extent of the teams impacted were or why. Much of the team working on the game is based in China. Other developers based in North America, including level designer Garry McGee, appear to have been fired. NetEase did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Marvel Rivals only recently hit the mid-season point on its first big post-launch content update, and the game has appeared to continue being a hit. In a year of online multiplayer bombs and fast-passing fads, NetEase’s free-to-play game remains in the top five most-played on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is still number one on Steam. Today’s cuts happened alongside a YouTube video updating fans on the state of upcoming changes to the game led by creative director Guangguang. “I don’t get it, man,” wrote veteran game artist Del Walker in response to the news. “You make one of the most successful LIVE service titles of the generation, despite the world telling you LIVE service is dead – and still get laid off? What are we even doing at this point.”Marvel Rivals season 2 is currently expected to go live in early April. 2/19/2025 10:19 a.m. ET: NetEase says the “core” team based in Guangzhou, China “remains fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience” in Marvel Rivals moving forward. A statement from the company said the layoffs were done “to optimize development efficiency” but did not go into more detail. The full statement from a NetEase spokesperson is below:We recently made the difficult decision to adjust Marvel Rivals’ development team structure for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency for the game. This resulted in a reduction of a design team based in Seattle that is part of a larger global design function in support of Marvel Rivals. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of those affected and will be treating them confidentially and respectfully with recognition for their individual contributions.We want to reassure our fanbase that the core development team for Marvel Rivals, which continues to be led by Lead Producer Weicong Wu and Game Creative Director Guangyun Chen in Guangzhou, China, remains fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience. We are investing more, not less, into the evolution and growth of this game. We’re excited to deliver new super hero characters, maps, features, and content to ensure an engaging live service experience for our worldwide player base..

Source: https://kotaku.com/marvel-rivals-netease-game-director-layoffs-season-2-1851765290