Riot Games lays off 530 employees and sunsets Riot Forge

We’re not even a month through 2024 and it’s looking to be a rough year for the games industry. Massive developer and publisher Riot Games, home to League of Legends and Valorant, announced today it has laid off 530 employees or roughly 11% of its workforce. Legends of Runetterra, Riot’s competitor to Hearthstone, is also seeing a reduction in team size and will shift focus to its Path of Champions PvE game mode. Riot Forge, a division of Riot Games that focuses on teaming up with established developers and creating unique single-player experiences in the Runterra universe, will also be sunset.

Riot Forge comes to an end

Announced in 2019, Riot Forge has worked with other developers to release five single-player games over the last four years, with a sixth game, Bandle Tale, set to release in February.

“We’re sunsetting Riot Forge after the upcoming release of Bandle Tale. Forge has been our collaboration with external studios to develop smaller scale games in our IP. While we’re proud of what we’ve created in this space, and we’re grateful for the Forge team and for our external partners who made these games happen, we don’t view this as core to our strategy moving forward. We aren’t closing the door entirely on single-player experiences or working with other developers if the right project comes along, but we would want it to look pretty different in the future. “

– Dylan Jadeja, CEO of Riot Games

A rough time to be in the Game Industry

After losing over 9,000 jobs in 2023, the Game Industry continues to shed jobs. We’re not even a month into the new year and a handful of companies have already undergone layoffs, restructures, and even full closures. VR Developer Architact recently underwent layoffs, as did Swedish developer and publisher Thunderful Group.

Even relative companies have been affected. Game Engine creator Unity laid off 25% of its workforce to start the year. Popular game services Discord and Twitch underwent hefty layoffs as well.

It’s such a weird feeling. 2023 was probably overall one of the best years for gamers, with a plethora of amazing game releases. Yet seemingly every week the game industry is losing jobs at a rapid pace.