The news hits like a bolt from the blue. PlayStation has decided to stop working with 900 employees. The cuts, Sony says, will affect studios around the world. Regarding the United States, the employees involved will be contacted via email at this time. Naughty Dog and Insomniac will certainly be involved as well as the technology and creative departments. The bulk of the cuts, however, should concern the UK area. There are at least two solutions that Sony has taken into consideration: the drastic reduction in workforce for Firesprite Studio and the total closure of London Studio. In both cases, SIE UK's functions will be scaled back.
PlayStation cuts 900 employees. London Studio and Firesprite at risk
The decision relating to UK based studies, says Jim Ryan in the email addressed to all staff, will be the result of a series of consultations that will be launched in the next few days. The possible closure of London Studio, it must be said, would probably involve the cancellation of the unreleased IP that the devs have been working on since 2021, a multiplayer game. Curiously, the following year the announcement, London had also published advertisements seeking personnel to work on that project.
The last work published by London Studio was Blood and Truth for PSVR in 2019. Firesprite, however, was acquired by Sony in 2021. The studio itself was born from the dismantling of a previous one. Since 2022, the authors of Persistence have been working on an unreleased triple-A horror in Unreal Engine 5.