The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is one of 2024’s biggest gaming success stories, having sold more in a month than the original sold in a year. Sadly, that did not stop Virtuos, the studio that worked on the remaster of this RPG classic, from laying off developers today. Overall, 270 Virtuos employees across Asia and Europe were impacted.
This continues 2025’s streak of tumultuous video game industry layoffs, where even success doesn’t guarantee job security for game developers. Earlier this month, there were massive gaming-related layoffs by Microsoft, the parent company of Oblivion Remastered publisher Bethesda, which resulted in multiple cancellations and a studio closure.
Why did Virtuos lay off 270 game developers?
“Slower demand” has hurt this support studio
You might not have heard of Virtuos, but you have almost certainly played something they have worked on. It is a large gaming company with studios in North America, Europe, and Asia that focuses on supporting other game studios’ work rather than original projects. 2025 should’ve been a particularly triumphant year for the studio, as it successfully launched Oblivion Remastered in April, helped with the most recent update for Cyberpunk 2077, and is about to release the remake of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater with Konami next month. Instead, around 7% of its workforce is being laid off. These layoffs were first spotted by French outlet Origami, but Virtuos has since released a statement about the layoffs on its website, leading with the following:
Virtuos is evolving to meet the changing needs of our partners and the industry. As game development grows increasingly complex, we are realigning our global footprint and capabilities to strengthen our offering in high-value co-development, ranging from full game engineering to advanced art, including creative content production and live services. This evolution involves a rebalancing of roles across our studios and geographies. Approximately 7% of Virtuos’ global workforce was affected, primarily in teams facing lower occupancy and slower demand due to structural shifts in the industry. This includes about 200 roles in Asia and 70 roles in Europe, including fewer than 10 in France, where the core team working on Oblivion Remastered is located.
Virtuos’ statement attempts to downplay the impact of these layoffs and deemphasize their connection to Oblivion Remastered, but the two are intrinsically linked. Oblivion Remastered was a successful game launch connected to a wildly popular RPG franchise launched right into Xbox Game Pass. It still didn’t prevent a game studio from deciding to let some of its hardworking developers go.
2025 has been brutal for the video game industry in this regard. Big gaming companies, such as Microsoft, EA, and Sony, are laying off developers, canceling projects, and shutting down game studios they own. That has a trickle-down effect on support studios like Virtuos, which rely on steady work and struggle when things stagnate.
Virtuos is not completely shutting down, though, nor does it appear to be closing any specific studio it owns. In its statement about the layoffs, Virtuos goes on to promise it “will continue to invest in global delivery, technical excellence, and creative collaboration, ensuring that Virtuos remains the partner of choice for the world’s leading game creators.” It won’t be doing so with many of the developers who previously made that possible, though.
