The North American development team for Marvel Rivals have been hit by layoffs. According to a post on his LinkedIn profile, Thaddeus Sasser, one of the game directors of Marvel Rivals, along with his entire team, were laid off from working on the game on February 18, 2025, a little over two months after the game’s full launch.
Jack Burrows, one of the lead level designers on Marvel Rivals, was also laid off. In a post on his LinkedIn profile, Burrows states that “his American coworkers” join him “in this sad culling.” According to Burrows, all of his coworkers who had been laid off were part of the American NetEase Games team and both Burrows and Sasser state that the entire American NetEase Games team working on Marvel Rivals have been removed. Both Burrows and Sasser have been posting about it on their individual LinkedIn profiles, shouting out their team members who are now looking for new employment opportunities.
The layoff announcements arrived just hours after Marvel Rivals revealed gameplay trailers for its newest heroes: The Thing and The Human Torch. NetEase also oversaw layoffs involving the closure of Ouka Studios, responsible for the development of Visions of Mana and took over operations of the Square Enix mobile game Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent, where they recently addressed player issues with the localization of the English version of the game.
It is currently unknown what impact this will have on the content in the game or its upcoming updates. As of now, NetEase has not stated the reason for the layoffs or whether or not plans regarding the future of the game have changed.
Marvel Rivals is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X and PC. Season 2 is estimated to begin in April, 2025.
Published: Feb 19, 2025 12:00 pm