Sega lays off 121 employees at Company of Heroes studio Relic Entertainment
To "ensure maximum focus is placed on our core franchises."
Sega has laid off 121 employees at Company of Heroes and Age of Empires 4 studio Relic Entertainment, blaming "external factors [that] are challenging our industry more than ever".
Confirmation of job cuts at the Canada-based developer, which has been part of Sega since its acquisition in 2013, came via a statement shared on Twitter.
"Relic Entertainment and Sega Europe want to share the difficult news that our studio has been impacted by layoffs, affecting 121 employees," Relic wrote. "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," the statement continued. "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."
"This decision was incredibly difficult," the developer concluded. "Relic is a studio that treasures our people and is proud of the culture we've grown, and right now our focus is on supporting departing employees in every way we can. We would like to offer our sincerest thanks to each of them for the part they've played in making Relic such a special studio."
Today's news marks the latest in a wave of job cuts across the games industry, with Unity, Microsoft, Take-Two, Riot Games, EA, Twitch, Meta, CD Projekt, and Ubisoft all having announced layoffs in the last few months.