A senior level designer at PlayStation claimed that a “wave of layoffs” is taking place at Sony Interactive Entertainment and PlayStation Studios.
The extent of the layoffs was not specified and Sony hasn’t made any comments addressing the allegation, but it is said that those also affected are staff at PlayStation’s Visual Arts studio in San Diego, who support Naughty Dog (The Last of Us) and Insomniac (Spider-Man 2).
The news comes via a message from the LinkedIn account of senior level designer and Ubisoft alumnus Daniel Bellemare (who worked on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla).
“Unfortunately, following a wave of layoffs last week was my last at Playstation,” Bellemare said. “While this is certainly not news I was hoping for, I’m grateful to have had a chance to work amongst extremely talented colleagues on incredible projects and I’m leaving with good memories of my time there.”
Bellemare’s CV mentions that his “role ended due to layoffs at Playstation” and was “not performance related.”
Senior technical recruiter Matt Barney, who worked with teams such as MLB: The Show developer San Diego Studio and God of War support studio Valkyrie Entertainment and XDEV, also lost his job as noted in a “goodbye post.”
“For the past few months, I knew this layoff wave was coming,” Barney wrote. “I love PlayStation & I always will… I mean, I stayed when I had the chance to leave, so obviously! […] “To those of you within my former organization that have been impacted today, I wish you the best of luck in your own layoff!”
PlayStation Visual Arts character rigging artist Sean Teo also mentioned their contract came to an end in September, though it is said that this instance might not be related to the “layoff wave.”
