The video game industry has eliminated more than 3,700 confirmed jobs globally in 2026, with the real total likely running past 4,000 once unverified cuts and quiet studio closures are counted. Tracking site Game Industry Layoffs puts the number of shuttered studios at 22 through the year, affecting an estimated 4,600 employees when every closure is included.
The cuts have hit nearly every corner of the industry. Epic Games eliminated more than 1,000 roles in March following declining Fortnite engagement, the single largest reduction of the year. Bungie cut roughly 300 to 400 employees in June, continuing a pattern of repeated layoffs at the Sony-owned studio. Ubisoft spread 680 job losses across multiple studios, including roughly 100 in Belgrade, 93 in San Francisco, 71 in Halifax, 65 in Winnipeg, and 40 in Toronto, on top of 105 more at its RedStorm Entertainment subsidiary. Eidos-Montréal lost 124 positions in March after Embracer Group canceled a major AAA project the studio had been building.
Smaller studios absorbed damage throughout the year as well. Playtika cut roughly 500 mobile gaming staff in January. Meta’s VR division closed Sanzaru, Twisted Pixel, and Armature Studio in a single stretch of January layoffs totaling around 235 employees. Keywords Studios eliminated 128 positions at its San Francisco publishing division in June, the same week Strikerz, an online gaming platform under XTEN Limited, cut around 250 employees and Queen Digital Entertainment shut down entirely, affecting roughly 25 staff.
The Cuts Kept Coming Into Fall
The layoffs did not stop when the midyear numbers were tallied. Microsoft cut more jobs from its video game division in late September, continuing cuts Bloomberg reported as part of a broader restructuring that folded additional Xbox studios under Activision’s management. World’s Edge, the studio behind Age of Empires, had roughly half its staff eliminated and its next unannounced project canceled outright as part of that same move. A separate Xbox studio that had just gone independent reported what outlets described as “significant” layoffs within hours of the spinoff taking effect.
Geographically, the United States absorbed 58.2% of the global total, with 2,153 confirmed job losses. Canada recorded 257 confirmed layoffs, and France saw hundreds of cuts spread across four separate game companies.
Record Revenue, Record Layoffs
The layoffs are not tracking with industry revenue. Tracking data cited by the report notes the industry posted record revenues in 2026 even as the job cuts mounted, a pattern that points to correction from pandemic-era overhiring rather than financial distress at the companies doing the cutting. The video game sector’s numbers sit inside a broader tech contraction that has eliminated more than 143,378 jobs across the industry this year, including 31,900 in cloud and SaaS, roughly 21,000 in e-commerce, and more than 16,700 in IT services.
For an industry posting its best revenue numbers in years, the headcount reductions tell a different story about where that money is going and who gets to keep a job while it comes in.
Does record revenue alongside record layoffs tell you these companies overhired during the pandemic, or that the money just isn’t reaching the people making the games?
Problem is, they're firing older devs who know anything about coding because they're "problematic."
And deeper, they're firing developers, not executives who decide hiring. So the black girl-boss in HR will 110% hire only septum ring gender"mancers" who echo her Bluesky feed.
Compounding the problem, rather than reducing it. When the HR directors get fired, we might see progress 10-15 years down the line.
Good, but not good enough, welfare time is over..."put the damn fries in the bag"