Marvel Rivals’ game director and others from the development team behind the hit hero shooter have been laid off. The dismissals have caught many by surprise as NetEase’s comic book blockbuster continues to dominate the charts on Steam and consoles months after its well-received launch.
“This is such a weird industry...” wrote director Thaddeus Sasser on LinkedIn, whose job title currently reads “I help create billion-dollar franchises.” His post continued, “My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games...and were just laid off!”
Marvel Rivals level designer Jack Burrows posted a similar message on the job-hunting website. Hey folks!” he wrote. “Welp, just got laid off from my job working on Marvel Rivals with NetEase. 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 size and location of the teams that worked on the hero shooter have been hard to pin down, and it’s not immediately clear what the extent of the teams impacted were or why. Much of the team working on the game is based in China. Other developers based in North America, including level designer Garry McGee, appear to have been fired. NetEase did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Marvel Rivals only recently hit the mid-season point on its first big post-launch content update, and the game has appeared to continue being a hit. In a year of online multiplayer bombs and fast-passing fads, NetEase’s free-to-play game remains in the top five most-played on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is still number one on Steam. Today’s cuts happened alongside a YouTube video updating fans on the state of upcoming changes to the game led by creative director Guangguang.
“I don’t get it, man,” wrote veteran game artist Del Walker in response to the news. “You make one of the most successful LIVE service titles of the generation, despite the world telling you LIVE service is dead - and still get laid off? What are we even doing at this point.”
Marvel Rivals season 2 is currently expected to go live in early April.
.