Daybreak Games makes multiple layoffs, including on Planetside Arena team

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Scale not clear, but Planetside Arena lead designer says team "lost some really good people today".

(Image credit: Daybreak)

Daybreak Games has laid off multiple employees, including some that were working on battle royale Planetside Arena, which went into Early Access last month. The scale of the layoffs at the H1Z1 and Planetside 2 studio is not yet clear, but one developer who lost his job said multiple teams had been hit, while Planetside Arena's lead designer said his team had "lost some really good people today".

In a statement to Gamasutra, Daybreak Games confirmed it had laid off "some employees" as part of a restructuring. "We are taking steps to improve our business and to support our long-term vision for the existing franchises and development of new games," it said. "This will include a realignment of the company into separate franchise teams, which will allow us to highlight their expertise, better showcase the games they work on, and ultimately provide tailored experiences for our players. Unfortunately, some employees were impacted by this effort, and we’re doing what we can to support them during this challenging time."

Daybreak laid off a significant number of employees last year, both in April and December.

Several developers who lost their job yesterday took to Twitter to announce the news. Former H1Z1 technical director Josh Kriegshauser, who worked on Planetside Arena before handing in his notice last month, said that "lots of friends were affected" by the layoffs.

I have reached out to Daybreak to clarify the scale of the job cuts.

Samuel Horti
Samuel Horti

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.