Daybreak Studios issues another round of lay offs, between 60-70 staff members affected

Another round of layoffs has occurred at H1Z1 developer Daybreak Studios.

Daybreak Studios has laid-off between 60-70 employees in an effort to 'optimize its structure' and realign resources. The number of staff affected has yet to be confirmed by the company.

This is the second round of layoffs to occur at the company this year. Back in April, a large number of redundancies were announced, although an exact figure wasn't provided by Daybreak.  The reason given for the layoffs was a need to realign the workforce to "better position our company for the future."

Daybreak's statement regarding yesterday's staff reductions mirrors the one made in April.

“We are optimizing our structure to ensure we best position ourselves for continued success in the years to come," said Daybreak in a statement via Massively OP.

"This effort has required us to make some changes within the organization and we are doing everything we can to support those impacted in this difficult time. As we look to improve efficiencies and realign resources, we remain focused on supporting our existing games and development of our future titles.”

John Smedley, who is the former president of Sony Online Entertainment and former CEO at Daybreak, which purchased SOE in 2015 (and issued a large number of layoffs one week later), offered his opinion on the layoffs via Twitter. His comments seem to have been removed, as the links aren't working, but were luckily saved by Massively.

"Very sorry to hear about the layoffs at Daybreak. Those are good people that should still be working there 10 years from now if things were being well run," said Smedley. "Really, really, really angry right now. It's December FFS and this is how you treat employees Daybreak Games come on."

It was initially assumed Daybreak was shuttering its studio in Austin, Texas, but the company said that is not the case, as the studio will remain operational. Massively understands the Austin studio is working on "a secret game with a top IP" which was also confirmed by Variety.

We wish those affected the very best of luck. Getting laid-off is never a good feeling, and even worse when it occurs around the holidays.