Reloaded’ Studio XR Games Lays Off Majority of Staff

XR Games, a studio based in Leeds, UK, known for their titles Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded (2024) and Zombieland VR: Headshot Fever (2021), has recently laid off a significant portion of its staff.

The news was shared by María Fernanda Díez Huerta on LinkedIn, who served as the Head of Production at XR Games from 2021 to 2023. Huerta revealed that the studio has let go of 72 employees, retaining only 12 out of approximately 84, a move she describes as “beyond restructuring.”

The layoffs affected various roles including art, programming, QA, production, game design, and IT.

While XR Games and CEO Bobby Thandi have not officially addressed the layoffs, it is speculated that the decision may be linked to the lukewarm reception of Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded, a Quest-exclusive adaptation of the popular stealth-action game that faced criticism for its visual and technical issues at launch.

These layoffs have occurred during the production of two major projects at the studio: Zombie Army VR, a VR shooter based on the well-known franchise from Rebellion, and Starship Troopers: Continuum, an online co-op shooter developed in collaboration with Sony—both projects were announced shortly before the news of the layoffs emerged.

XR Games is not the only studio making cuts, as VR industry veteran nDreams recently announced a reduction of around 17 percent of its workforce. This downsizing trend is also evident among other prominent publishers and studios like Embracer Group, Unity, Microsoft, EA, Sony, Epic Games, Take-Two Interactive, and Riot Games.

Several other VR studios have been impacted this year, including Meta’s Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo, Echo VR), Sony’s London Studio (PlayStation Worlds, Blood & Truth (2019)), and indie developer Archiact (Doom 3 VR Edition).