PlayStation Visual Arts Has Been Hit With Layoffs

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Sony’s PlayStation Visual Arts studio has been hit with layoffs amidst restructuring, based on the latest information.

Former Project Coordinator at PlayStation Visual Arts, John Borba, took to Linkedin to share that the studio has been hit with layoffs as a result of a large pivot on the AAA multiplayer game it had been working on, and he was, unfortunately, among the people who were let go to support the new budgetary needs.

Borba further mentioned that the industry is currently going through a period of restructuring and cost-cutting, and, unfortunately, he has now found himself in a situation that many others have also been facing. He stated that he had the privilege of working with talented individuals and being involved in exciting projects at PlayStation Visual Arts. He expressed his confidence in the development team’s work and capability.

In his position at PlayStation Visual Arts, Borba had been working as an Art Outsourcing Coordinator on an unannounced AAA project. This is likely the AAA multiplayer game that he mentioned in his recent post. In his role, he was working collaboratively with an external studio, as well as a team of artists across multiple disciplines to develop replicable, easy-to-understand, measurable pipelines that established accountability and collaboration across studios.

Similarly, it was reported by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier that Naughty Dog had significantly scaled down the team on its The Last of Us multiplayer project, as the studio will now reassess the game’s quality and viability. His sources claim that the game was recently evaluated, and weaknesses were found.

Regarding The Last of Us multiplayer game, it was previously reported by Jeff Grubb that the live service game would feature large chunks of areas that could be swapped out without the need for significant updates at the user end. Read about it here.