Square Enix to lay off employees in American, European offices

Square Enix is reportedly preparing to lay off employees in its American and United Kingdom offices. According to Video Games Chronicle's Andy Robinson, who spoke with sources familiar with the plans, Square Enix President Takashi Kiryu shared the news with employees earlier today.

Kiryu informed workers that it would be dismissing employees working in publishing, information technology, and the Square Enix Indie Collective in the month ahead. Employees in the United States may be ousted as early as June 2024, while UK employees will benefit from the legally-required one-month consultancy period.

A spokesperson for Square Enix confirmed the news to Game Developer. "After several months of analysis and discussion among our leadership team, we have made the difficult decision to restructure our Western organization," a company spokesperson said in an e-mail exchange. "This restructuring will unfortunately include a reduction in the overall number roles across America and Europe."

"We are grateful to the talented Square Enix team members who will be leaving us and will support them during this transition."

Apparently after this news was shared, the company barred access to many of its internal Slack channels.

This wave of layoffs would mean Square Enix is joining the ranks of companies of all shapes and sizes that have spent the last year eliminating thousands of jobs across the globe. Some like Microsoft have been making massive cuts at the studios they purchased. Others like Prytania Media have been imploding under the weight of mismanaged projects.

Square Enix is refocusing its strategy on "unforgettable experiences"

The timing of these layoffs coincides with today's news that the company is making major changes to how it operates. Those changes follow major drops in year-over-year operating income after cancelling several in-development projects.

Going forward, the company will be downplaying exclusive releases in flavor of multiplatform titles, planning possible mergers and acquisitions, and rebuilding its overseas (re: outside Japan) operations from the ground-up.

Last year the studio replaced long-serving president Yosuke Matsuda amidst reports that the studio was struggling with "mismanaged" game development.

Whatever business shakeups Square Enix needs to undertake to meet its bottom line (if it wasn't making "unforgettable experiences" before...will it actually do so now?)—needing to do them at the cost of jobs is disappointing news.