Naughty Dog cutting contract developers early, report claims
The Last of Us studio Naughty Dog is the latest company to announce layoffs internally, with at least 25 developers to be affected.
Contractors for a range of departments, including art, production and QA, are being impacted, according to a report from Kotaku, with sources claiming at least 25 developers will be affected.
Naughty Dog is cutting contracts short for outsourced developers, and sources say no severance pay is being given to those laid off. Both remaining employees and laid off developers are allegedly «being pressured to keep the news quiet».
According to sources, impacted contractors are being expected to work until the end of October, at which point their contracts will be officially terminated.
It's suspected that affected developers may be those working on The Last of Us multiplayer project, which was initially meant to release with The Last of Us Part 2. Earlier this year, the team working on the multiplayer project was hugely scaled back following negative feedback from Bungie.
The early termination of contracts at Naughty Dog is the latest news in a slew of layoffs and job losses in the games industry. Last week Epic Games laid off 830 staff, with Fall Guys developer Mediatonic taking heavy losses. On the same day, Sega abruptly announced it was cancelling Hyenas, with layoffs expected at developer Creative Assembly. «Significant» job losses are also expected at Team17 following the departure of the company's CEO and a proposed restructure.
Eurogamer has contacted Sony for comment on the reported layoffs of contractors.
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