Civilization 7 developers Firaxis have undergone a “staff reduction” affecting an unspecified number of workers today, publishers 2K have confirmed to RPS.
News of the cuts broke via a series of posts from now former Firaxis writer Emma Kidwell. “I was affected by the layoffs at Firaxis, and am open to full time writing work at your studio,” she wrote on LinkedIn. “I’m an incredibly adaptable writer who wrote on Civilization VII and Marvel’s Midnight Suns during my (nearly) 5 years at the studio, and I encourage you to keep an eye out for my former colleagues who were also laid off.”
Responding to RPS’ outreach about the post, a 2K spokesperson provided the following statement: “We can confirm there was a staff reduction today at Firaxis Games, as the studio restructures and optimizes its development process for adaptability, collaboration, and creativity.”
The spokesperson added that 2K’s policy is not to disclose specifically how many staff are affected by layoffs. The timing of the layoffs seems worth noting, with Kidwell posting not long after Hollow Knight: Silksong’s release arrived and sucked up a lot of attention.
Firaxis have previously laid off staff back in 2023, when 30 employees were let go as part of a wider cost-reduction programme at 2K parent company Take-Two. Since then, Firaxis have released Civilization 7, which garnered mixed reception out of the gate, with players criticising the user interface among other features. Firaxis have worked to release a bunch of updates and patches since, both tweaking areas of the game folks haven’t meshed with, and adding some huge maps.
Greg Costikyan wrote the following in our Civ 7 review:
Civilization 7, as currently constituted, has some real flaws – and though I expect they may be fixed in future updates (and there are workarounds), some of this is a little sloppy. The most basic issue is: combat sucks. Before we get to why, let’s first talk about some of Civilization 7’s big new ideas. It’s pretty clear that the main design concern this time is to address two criticisms of the earlier iterations. In fact, the game is successful on that score.
Our best to the Firaxis staff affected by these layoffs.
