Riot Games will be making its second layoff of the year, the studio confirmed on Tuesday. The latest round of layoffs will affect the PC development team of Riot’s popular MOBA League of Legends. Riot said the layoffs are part of larger changes to its team that will ensure long-term growth and improvement in League of Legends. The studio said affected employees will receive severance packages.
Riot Games lays off more employees
Riot Games said in the announcement that the decision to cancel the character was not to “save money” and that the size of the League of Legends team will eventually expand.
“As part of these changes, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a number of characters. This isn’t about reducing headcount to save money, it’s about ensuring we have the right expertise in place so that League of Legends continues to be great for the next 15 years and beyond,” Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill said in a post on X on Tuesday. “While team efficiency is more important than team size, as we develop the next phase of the league, league teams will ultimately be larger than they are today,” he added.
Riot did not confirm the number of employees affected by the latest round of layoffs in its announcement, but a studio spokesperson confirmed to Eurogamer that 32 employees will be affected, including 27 employees on the League of Legends team and another five employees in the publishing department.
Merrill said in the post that laid-off employees will receive a severance package that includes at least six months of salary, an annual bonus, job placement assistance, health insurance and more.
The Riot co-founder said the studio is working on the “next phase” of League of Legends and will share more about the game’s “ambitious plans” in the future.
This is Riot Games’ second round of layoffs this year. In January, the studio laid off 530 employees, approximately 11% of its global workforce. Teams outside of core development are most affected by layoffs.
Riot Games CEO Dylan Jadeja said in a letter to employees at the time: “Today, we are a company without a sharp enough focus. Simply put, we have too much going on. Some of the significant investments we made are not paying off as we expected. Our costs have grown to unsustainable levels.”