Sony has new layoffs at PlayStation Visual Arts in San Diego.
As reported by Kotaku, several employees at the studio revealed that they were laid off on LinkedIn, with their last day arriving this March 7. Sony did not immediately respond when asked to comment.
While we are well into the third year of an ongoing wave of layoffs and studio closures in the video game industry, it’s worth paying attention to the finer details at PlayStation Visual Arts. This studio is primarily made of artists and creators. So, instead of making video games themselves, they provide support and additional work for Sony’s other studios.
Last May and October 2023, we also reported on layoffs at PlayStation Visual Arts. At the time, these layoffs were associated with the ramping down of Naughty Dog’s planned remake of The Last of Us’ Factions online mode multiplayer.
Naughty Dog would officially cancel The Last of Us Online in December 2023. They explained that the project became a victim of scope creep. In other words, the live service game they were working on became so big that it forced Naughty Dog to choose if they wanted to change completely from a single player game studio to a dedicated live service game studio.
In August of last year, Jason Schreier shared insider information in relation to The Last of Us Online. He claimed that the game was in development since 2019, and its eventual cancellation did lead to many of the layoffs that we have been reporting off of Sony.
Two years later, though, it’s harder to believe that these recent layoffs are also because of The Last of Us Online. As Kotaku reports, PlayStation Visual Arts was most recently working with Bend Studio on their cancelled live service title.
Subsequently, the people who were most recently laid off at PlayStation Visual Arts worked on The Last of Us Part 1 Remastered and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered.
If we look beyond the console war narratives, the unfortunate truth is that Sony is still not in a stable enough position to stop having layoffs. The sales of PlayStation 5 consoles, and of PlayStation games on PC, were not enough to secure the jobs of these people at PlayStation Visual Arts. If you’re a PlayStation fan, you need to understand that even if you religiously follow and buy their products, you may no longer have a direct effect on these outcomes.
We wish the best for the developers set to leave PlayStation Visual Arts and hope that they can find placement back in the video game industry.
