Marvel Rivals apparently hit with significant layoffs despite "incredibly successful" launch: "This is such a weird industry"

Update, February 19: NetEase Games has sent GamesRadar+ a statement confirming that a number of its US-based Marvel Rivals staff, specifically, a design team in Seattle, have been impacted with layoffs. It adds that its "core development team," led by lead producer Weicong Wu and creative director Guangyun Chen in China, is still "fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience."

Original story:

Marvel Rivals game director Thaddeus Sasser shares on LinkedIn that NetEase laid off his entire, US-based team despite the hero shooter's sky-high popularity.

"This is such a weird industry..." Sasser writes in his LinkedIn post. "My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games [...] and were just laid off!"

"Oh well!" Sasser continues. "Times are tough all over – let's find these incredible people new jobs, because we all need to eat, right?"

In spring 2024, Chinese publisher NetEase started making dramatic cuts to Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios. Then, at the end of the same year, NetEase reportedly transferred members of its central staff after it was disappointed by mobile game Operation Apocalypse's local launch; that shooter has since been shut down.

This time, we don't yet know the extent of NetEase's latest round of layoffs, and the company has not yet responded to GamesRadar+'s request for comment.

As of now, it appears that Marvel Rivals' entire US team has been wiped out. Former level designer Garry McGee says as much in another LinkedIn post, lamenting the fact that "my team recently helped develop and launch Marvel Rivals, which turned out to be a bigger hit than any of us expected! Unfortunately, my team was also laid off."

"Strange times all across the industry indeed," McGee continues.

Former level designer Jack Burrows shares a similar sentiment in his own LinkedIn post, sharing that it "was an enormous pleasure to work with my American coworkers who join me in this sad culling. Just couldn't dodge that big boot I guess, no matter how big the success of the gig."

As of writing, Marvel Rivals has over 200,000 concurrent players, and the game issued a mid-season update earlier today.

No, Marvel Rivals developer NetEase isn't intentionally planting fake leaks to mess with everyone, but its datamined characters aren't guaranteed to appear in the future, either.