EA has laid off a whole lot of staff—reportedly round 300 to 400—throughout its studios, together with round 100 at Respawn Leisure, builders of Titanfall and Apex Legends. Among the many many builders left scrambling in an trade the place this has change into shockingly routine, one particularly leapt out.
Heather Woodward, a now-former narrative designer at Respawn, was laid off a literal day after the character she’d spent an entire yr writing debuted. On April 28, Apex Legends launched a brand new character by the title of Sparrow:
“My first born is lastly right here,” Woodward posted to Bluesky. “I’ve been engaged on this candy ragazzo for nicely over a yr. Writing a music video fashion trailer was a tricky however rewarding problem and I can’t imagine I get to see my work animated by the unimaginable crew at Solar Creature.”
Then, on April 29, the layoffs hit and Woodward found she’d been caught within the wave of sacrifices to the altar of development: “Nicely, that is awkward however… I used to be simply mass-downsized at Respawn. This stuff occur and my time with Apex has been a prime to backside blast, my favourite job I’ve ever had. It’s been a real pleasure to put in writing Sparrow, I’ll proceed to be unbearable about him for weeks to come back.”
As if to correctly hammer a ultimate, capricious nail right into a coffin, Woodward was then despatched a promotional e mail for the character she wrote earlier than she was promptly proven the door.
Woodward seems to be taking this on the chin in a method that is downright enviable—but it surely actually does really feel like an ideal nutshell of how tousled and unsustainable this trade has change into. There’s simply zero assure of something, anymore. Let’s check out the the reason why you may get laid off whereas engaged on a sport, we could?
Now we are able to add “You dared to work on a videogame” to that record, I suppose. Woodward’s work on Sparrow might be both good or dangerous and it clearly does not matter—make an excellent sport, make a nasty sport, make a sport in any respect, and your job’s in danger. However perhaps I am being too up-in-arms about it. We might simply go to the seashore, in any case.
