Sega announces 121 job cuts at Company Of Heroes studio Relic Entertainment
Company Of Heroes 3 launched this February
Sega have laid off 121 employees working at Relic Entertainment, the studio behind Age Of Empires 4 and the Company Of Heroes series. Today's news comes three months after the studio released Company Of Heroes 3, although Sega points to the “external factors [that] are challenging our industry” as one reason behind the job cuts.
"Relic Entertainment and Sega Europe want to share the difficult news that our studio has been impacted by layoffs, affecting 121 employees," reads the shared statement on Twitter. "This comes at a time when external factors are challenging our industry more than ever, and we made this decision to restructure our organisation to ensure maximum focus is placed on our core franchises."
"Relic and Sega remain fully committed to supporting and investing in our titles, including the recently released Company of Heroes 3," continues the statement. "We're confident that following this necessary restructuring, Relic will be in a position of strength to continue delivering outstanding experiences to players all over the world."
Sega acquired the strategy game developer in 2013 after their success with the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War series. More recently, the studio launched Company Of Heroes 3 earlier in February and our Katharine called it a “glorious comeback” in her review. Since then, the game recently received its first major content update with more promised additions still to come. Relic also co-developed Age Of Empires 4 along with the Microsoft-owned studio World’s Edge. That game is gearing up to launch its fifth season, although there’s no word on how or if these layoffs will affect future post-launch plans.
Redundancies have hit a string of other companies in the games industry this year, including layoffs at EA, Microsoft, Riot, Twitch, and most recently at indie studio Brace Yourself Games.