After releasing EA Sports WRC and F1 23, Codemasters becomes the latest studio hit with layoffs

Codemasters has become the latest entry on the long list of places throughout the games industry to be hit by layoffs this year.

These cuts follow the releases of both EA Sports WRC and F1 23 by the studio, which was bought by EA back in 2021 for a tidy $1.2 billion. As of writing it’s unclear how many staff at codies have been affected by the measures.

EA has confirmed that redundancies have taken place to IGN, but didn’t disclose the number of employees that have been or could be let go. In a statement, an EA spokesperson cited a need to make “small-scale organisational changes that align our teams and resources to meet evolving business needs and priorities” as the justification behind the layoffs.

“We continue to work closely with those affected by these changes, providing appropriate support throughout this process,” they added.

While it’s become a household name thanks to its work on the Dirt, F1, and Grid series over the years, both of the racing titles Codemasters has released this year have struggled to do as well as expected from a sales standpoint. F1 23's launch, for example, suffered a drop of almost 47% sales-wise compared to the numbers managed by F1 22 over the same period. Meanwhile, EA Sports WRC, being the first game to be released since the studio’s acquisition of the official WRC licence, was likely under even more of a microscope from a financial perspective.

I’ve largely enjoyed the time I spent with the rallying sim so far and said in my review that I thought it did a decent jop of living up to the lofty standard Codemasters set with Dirt Rally 2.0, at least in short spurts. That said, the game did suffer from some technical issues that look to be traced back to the decision to switch engines between the two games, putting a bit of a dampner on the experience a lot of folks had.

How much a fairly hardcore rally sim could hope to seriously move the sales needle for a publisher used to ruling the roost with its other sports-based titles, such as the unstoppable money making force that is EA Sports FC - formerly known as FIFA - is probably something worth thinking about. Especially given the WRC itself’s recent struggles to stay as relevant in the sporting mainstream as it once was.

F1 23, on the other hand, doesn’t have those same excuses, given that the pull of its titular series is arguably as high as it’s ever been right now, especially in North America.

New World Interactive, the studio behind tactical FPS Insurgency, has also recently been hit by layoffs, seemingly as a result of parent company Embracer Group’s desire to continue trying to balance its books.