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Less than a month after joining work on the Sands of Time remake, Ubisoft Toronto lays off 33 employees 'to ensure it can deliver on its ambitious roadmap'

Ubisoft calls it "a targeted realignment."

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive described it as "rationalizing its pipeline" in April, while Xbox chief Phil Spencer in March blamed an industry-wide " lack of growth" for the decimation of its workforce. In May, Square Enix announced its intent to "aggressively pursue" multiplatform game development with an increased focus on the PC market, a strategy that also necessitated layoffs; the following month Embracer Group unveiled a "human-centric" AI policy it said will"empower" its employees, just three days after closing Alone in the Dark studio Pieces Interactive outright. But with those restrictions now a thing of the past, that rapid expansion has slowed, and the executives who dove face-first into an overheated market as though it was going to last forever (and, let's be clear, who should have known better, that's literally their job) are now left to reckon with the aftermath —which, naturally, other people are going to have to pay for.

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