League of Legends Studio Riot Games to Lay Off Hundreds of Staff

Riot games – the studio behind League of Legends and Valorant – is the next big name to fall victim to layoffs. According to a recent press release from the company, 530 positions are about to be eliminated.

Severance pay offered

The news comes directly from Riot Games itself, who made the announcement via the websiteas well as an article about X. Although the studio said it had “managed to avoid days like this” for years, a difficult decision had to be made.

However, the developer goes on to say that “this is not to appease shareholders or achieve a quarterly profit figure”, and it is “a necessity”. It remains to be seen whether this will provide some comfort to the hundreds of people on the verge of losing their jobs.

The layoffs are expected to impact the company globally, but will have the greatest impact on teams “outside of core development.” The total number of people laid off equates to approximately 11% of Riot's workforce.

As a result, this will have an effect on the future of Riot Forge titles. The message reads: “We are ending development of new games under Riot Forge following the upcoming release of Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story.”

In an effort to be a little more transparent, the studio released the Internal memo written to staff by CEO Dylan Jadeja. In the email, it is clearly stated that those affected by the layoffs will receive severance pay, a cash bonus, health benefits and more.

Riot games is the latest casualty of the massive layoffs that have hit the gaming industry in 2023. However, it looks like this trend is set to continue, judging by what we've already seen in January.