Soon after Sony confirmed that PlayStation was laying off roughly 8% of its workforce, amounting to 900 employees, Insomniac Games revealed they were among the affected studios.
Rumblings of potential layoffs hitting Insomniac had leaked weeks ago during a massive ransomware breach that brought to light several internal documents that stated Sony was looking to lower the headcount at Insomniac, with the company seeking ways to lay off employees, targetting those that were deemed as "underperforming."
Sadly, news was confirmed on February 28 that Insomniac was among the studios that had to let go of several employees, with the final number unconfirmed.
Via social media, the official Insomniac Games issued a statement, claiming that the studio will focus on helping all the employees affected by the layoffs.
Insomniac has been a rock for SIE in recent years, shining for producing not only in terms of quantity but also the quality of their games.
Of course, the crown jewel for the studio in recent years has been its take on the Spider-Man universe, with Marvel's Spider-Man releasing in 2018 followed by the Miles Morales-centric DLC in 2020, and the sequel, Spider-Man 2, in 2023.
Amid those projects, Insomniac has also released smaller titles such as the Oculus Rift exclusive VR title Stormland, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart for the PS5, and are focused on continuous developing of a new Wolverine title, which was the focus of the recent ransomware attack late last year.
It's a sour thing to see Insomniac being hit by layoffs just weeks after it was revealed that Spider-Man 2 had crossed a historic milestone by reaching 10 million sales as of February 2024.
The leaks revealed that Spider-Man 2 had gone over budget, costing above $300 million total, and needing to sell around 7.2 million copies to go even.
Sadly, while both 2023 and 2024 looked like back-to-back killer years for game releases, the people working on them are having it worse than ever.