NetherRealm Studios is now the latest video game studio to suffer from layoffs.
As reported by Insider Gaming, the new outlet have confirmed that at least 50 employees have been laid off. Several former employees revealed the news on their LinkedIn accounts, as they are now job hunting.
Quality assurance analyst Tony Lazzara said:
“Good morning internet. Unfortunately, yesterday NetherRealm’s mobile team was shut down. A ton of very talented people were put out of work.”
Lazarra revealed that the mobile team also provided support for NetherRealm’s other titles.
Animator Elizabeth Ramirez said this:
“It hurts me to announce I’ve been laid off from NetherRealm Studios after about 10 years of working there.”
As of this writing, NetherRealm and WB have yet to confirm or share details of these layoffs.
NetherRealm Studios’ last game, Mortal Kombat 1, released in September 19, 2023, and had reached sales of 3 million units as of November 2023. These are objectively good numbers, but that comes off of the heels of Mortal Kombat 11, the most successful title in the series, which had sold a total of 15 million units.
It certainly seems that Mortal Kombat 1 is not living up to its predecessor, if we talk about sales. Players also have their criticisms of this latest release. But we have to point out, following the trend of layoffs in other companies, that these layoffs may not have anything to do with NetherRealm’s own financial performance.
Insomniac Games, which had served Sony consecutive AAA hit titles for the PlayStation 5, was part of the layoffs that the company made at PlayStation earlier this year. Sony had made the cruel determination that they didn’t need that many employees at the studio to keep making the games that they were making. It’s certainly no reward for Insomniac, but it seems the party at fault here was Sony management.
And it seems the same situation has appeared here. We reported a few months ago that Warner Bros took an impairment charge in Q1 2024. While profitable, they made $ 2.8 billion, which was 12 % lower than their profits last year.
WB blamed Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, among other projects, for the reason of the decline in profits. At the time we had reported that Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League developer Rocksteady Studios is now at risk of layoffs or shutdown. In hindsight, we should have recognized that this could affect all their studios down the line.
While nothing has been announced or confirmed by WB, it’s also possible that layoffs are planned or have happened at Rocksteady, Portkey Games, and Monolith Productions. We wish the employees of WB Games’ studios the best, and hope that they can continue to work in this industry.
