The house of Lara Croft is chopping much more employees in its fourth spherical of layoffs in only a yr. Crystal Dynamics just lately revealed Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and Tomb Raider: Catalyst at The Sport Awards 2025 and guarantees they’ll each stay unaffected at the same time as AAA gaming continues to battle.
The studio introduced on March 18 that it was chopping 20 individuals throughout “some improvement personnel and a few central operations roles.” That’s along with 30 individuals laid off final November, an unspecified quantity lower final August, and 17 individuals let go final March.
“As our present tasks transfer into new phases of improvement, we constantly take a tough have a look at our crew constructions to make sure they align with our long-term studio objectives,” the corporate wrote on LinkedIn. “Whereas we all the time try to transition our individuals into new roles each time doable, we have now sadly reached a degree the place these departures are vital.”
Crystal Dynamics, which can also be identified for 2020’s live-service fumble Marvel’s Avengers, had a headcount of 273 again in 2022. It’s since confronted a number of rounds of downsizing amid mismanagement at guardian firm Embracer and Microsoft’s cancelation of Good Darkish final yr, which the studio was co-developing on the time with The Initiative.
The group is at present working to ship Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, an Unreal Engine 5 remake of the unique 1996 hit, and Tomb Raider: Catalyst, a brand new entry within the collection that goals to take the action-adventure puzzle system right into a extra open-world format. Whereas the remake is scheduled to launch later this yr, Catalyst has been in improvement for a number of years and nonetheless doesn’t have a agency launch date past 2027.
“We all know that information like this will trigger concern amongst our neighborhood. Crystal Dynamics stays totally dedicated to the long run improvement of our already introduced Tomb Raider titles,” the studio wrote on Wednesday. “At the moment, nevertheless, our precedence is supporting our colleagues who’re transferring on.”
Each blockbusters are being printed by Amazon Sport Studios, which just lately ditched its AAA gaming ambitions because it retreats to low-cost social gathering video games. Amazon has stated it stays dedicated to publishing the video games although it’s not clear the place that matches in its bigger portfolio of gaming tasks. The tech large can also be creating a Tomb Raider TV collection for Amazon Prime.
