80%
Probable
A new report from VGC alleges that Square Enix is laying off staff in "nearly all areas" of its Western offices, with staff in its Europe and US offices hit. There's currently no word from Square Enix on how many have been impacted by this layoff, but sources told VGC that just from Square's London office, 140 employees are at risk of redundancy.
The news was delivered to staff through an internal video call as part of a restructuring that Square had mentioned in the progress report it published today, the same report where it boldly claimed that it wanted 70% of its QA work to be done by AI by 2027.
In the progress report, Square writes, "a fundamental restructuring of the overseas publishing organization is being implemented with the aim of further strengthening global publishing capabilities and improving operational efficiency."
This aligns with VGC's report, which includes the same wording from Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu, who also added that this layoff is intended to make Square more "lean" and "agile." The cuts will save Square 3 billion yen annually, according to the company's projections.
Along with the cost savings, the cuts are meant to bring work that developers are doing at Square Enix closer to home, so to speak. In the progress report, Square says the decision came by intending "To strengthen development capabilities from a Group-wide perspective and to optimize resource allocation for maximizing the value generated by IPs, a further review of the development pipeline was conducted. As a result, a decision was made to close overseas development studios and shift toward consolidating development functions in Japan."
Square is not the only Asia-based developer moving away from branching studios in other parts of the world. Shortly after a successful launch for Marvel Rivals, NetEase cut its California-based team as part a restructuring to keep work on the game closer to its home studio. NetEase also shut down two of its subsidiaries, one yesterday, and one today, as part of its continuing restructuring to limit the number of branching studios it has in the Western world.
Yesterday, Fantastic Pixel Castle shut down with the loss of NetEase's support, and today, NetEase closed Toronto-based studio, Bad Brain Game Studios.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
