The hero shooter’s development US-based team has reportedly been hit with layoffs
A little over two months after its hugely successful launch, the US-based developers behind Marvel Rivals, including its game director, have reportedly been hit with layoffs.
Posting on his LinkedIn profile on Tuesday, NetEase’s California-based game director Thaddeus Sasser claimed that an unspecified number of Marvel Rivals developers had been let go, including himself.
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“This is such a weird industry,” he wrote. “My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games …and were just laid off!”
Sasser confirmed that level designer Gary McGee had been let go as part of the layoffs, while another designer, Jack Burrows, also confirmed that NetEase had let them go.
“Welp, just got laid off from my job working on Marvel Rivals with NetEase,” they wrote. “Was an enormous pleasure to work with my American coworkers who join me in this sad culling. Just couldn’t dodge that big boot I guess, no matter how big the success of the gig.”
The surprise layoffs follow what appeared to be a hugely successful launch for the hero shooter. Since its debut in December, Marvel Rivals has enjoyed consistently high player numbers on Steam.
Circana analyst Mat Piscatella noted on Tuesday that Rivals is currently among the top 5 games in US weekly active users across PS5, XBS and Steam, according to its own player engagement tracker.
“It has been a massive hit, and one of the few games that has been able to break through the live service wall,” he wrote. “I dunno, folks. I just don’t know.”
When Marvel Rivals released its first season last month, the game saw 644,269 players play the game concurrently, launching it to number 14 in Steam‘s all-time highest concurrent player counts.
This is higher than other popular titles like Apex Legends, Path of Exile 2, Helldivers 2, and GTA 5.
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