Civilization 7 studio Firaxis confirms layoffs as it 'optimizes its development process for adaptability, collaboration, and creativity,' which is somehow even worse than just saying 'agility'

As Civilization 7 continues to underperform, developer Firaxis Games has confirmed that an unspecified number of employees have been let go.

Emma Kidwell, a writer on Civilization 7 whose past credits include Marvel's Midnight Suns, Hindsight, and Life is Strange 2, first reported the cuts earlier today on Bluesky. Several other Firaxis employees shared similar layoff messages on their own social media accounts.

Hi! I was laid off from Firaxis this morning. I wrote leaders and civs for Civilization VII (NDA for now) and Deadpool and Storm for Marvel's Midnight Suns. I also wrote the award-nominated Hindsight. I'm available for full time, remote work starting ASAP. DMs are open: emmkid.info

— @emmakidwell.bsky.social (@emmakidwell.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T17:10:38.258Z

2K Games subsequently confirmed the cuts at the studio. "There was a staff reduction today at Firaxis Games, as the studio restructures and optimizes its development process for adaptability, collaboration, and creativity," a 2K spokesperson said in a statement that somehow lands even worse than the usual tripe about "agility." 2K declined to comment on the number of people put out of work.

Appalling as it is, a more pressing issue for Firaxis than the need to optimize for adaptability, whatever the hell that means, is the fact that Civilization 7 remains mired in "mixed" reviews on Steam, a rating that, as recorded by SteamDB, is slowly going in the wrong direction. Concurrent player counts for Civ 7 also continue to lag well behind those of Civilization 6 and Civilization 5, a game that is now 15 years old.

But Civ 7 isn't Firaxis' only issue: Its previous big-name game, Marvel's Midnight Suns, was excellent and unfortunately also something of a flop, to the extent that it only received a single season of post-launch content and cancelled a planned release on the Nintendo Switch. That led to a previous round of layoffs at Firaxis in 2023 and, as we noted at the time, a presumed impetus to return to the safer shores of a can't-miss series like Civilization.

Somewhat ironically in light of all that, there's still no sign of XCOM 3, which remains a distant dream despite the excellence and success of XCOM 2—which is now approaching 10 years of age. Given the current shambolic state of the videogame industry as a whole, though, with very few exceptions (today's Silksong release being a fine example) there's just no such thing as a sure thing anymore.

Despite its struggles, the Firaxis layoffs do not point toward any sort of move away from Civilization 7, the rep said. "2K and Firaxis are committed to realizing the promise of Civilization 7 and continue to work hard on title updates and patches to ensure it aligns with the needs of our players. The Civilization franchise is and has always been about long-term opportunity, and we remain confident in its potential."