Not even instantly becoming one of the most popular live-service games on the market is enough, apparently, as now a support studio that worked with NetEase on Marvel Rivals has been laid off. To be clear: this seems to be a USA-based team that’s been supporting the main NetEase development studio, and not the game’s core team. Regardless, however, it is still very surprising to see an entire team of developers lose their jobs having helped Marvel Rivals launch to instant success.
The news comes from director Thaddeus Sasser, who said on LinkedIn: “My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games… and were just laid off!”
Separately, level designer Jack Burrows also posted about the layoffs, stating: “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.”
Released late last year, Marvel Rivals has achieved instant success with high player counts and an engaged audience, as it uses the Marvel license to replicate and take on Overwatch 2 in the live-service space. Many feel Marvel Rivals has actually already overtaken the Blizzard effort, which recently announced it’s bringing back lootboxes. While the core NetEase development house remains intact, it’s not clear whether this round of layoffs for the USA team will affect the content pipeline.
As Hasser rightly puts it, though, the situation is now more about finding “these incredible people new jobs, because we all need to eat, right?”
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- Source: https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2025/02/ridiculously-successful-marvel-rivals-loses-usa-studio-to-layoffs
