Crystal Dynamics Cuts 20 Workers in Yet Another Round of Layoffs

Around the same time as Ubisoft’s latest round of layoffs see over 100 employees lose their jobs, Crystal Dynamics, the game studio behind Square Enix’s recent Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, has announced that it will be laying off 20 employees across its development and operations teams. This is the fourth round of layoffs at the studio in the last year, and in a recent LinkedIn post announcing the layoffs, the studio explains that “we continuously take a hard look at our team structures to ensure they align with our long term studio goals,” and calls the layoffs “necessary.”

Some of the comments in the LinkedIn post are from affected employees, including an environment artist and a senior animator with 15 years of experience. Crystal Dynamics confirmed in the post that its “current projects” are heading into the next phases of development, and it reiterated that “Crystal Dynamics remains fully committed to the future development of our already announced Tomb Raider titles,” suggesting that there have been no game cancellations as yet. Tomb Raider: Catalyst is slated for a 2027 cross-platform launch, but even Crystal Dynamics admits that layoffs like these “can cause concern amongst our community.”

The full statement follows:

Today, Crystal Dynamics is reducing its workforce by 20 talented team members, split between some development personnel and some central operations roles. This is a difficult day for our studio, and we never make these decisions lightly, particularly after the restructuring we underwent last year.

As our current projects move into new phases of development, we continuously take a hard look at our team structures to ensure they align with our long-term studio goals. While we always strive to transition our people into new roles whenever possible, we have unfortunately reached a point where these departures are necessary.

We are incredibly grateful for the passion and hard work these individuals have poured into our games and our studio. We are providing them with severance and job placement assistance to help them land their next opportunity. If you have openings or know of positions for talented developers, please contact us and we’ll connect them.

We know that news like this can cause concern amongst our community. Crystal Dynamics remains fully committed to the future development of our already announced Tomb Raider titles. Today, however, our priority is supporting our colleagues who are moving on.