NetEase lays off Marvel Rivals US team despite huge success

The hugely successful multiplayer shooter, Marvel Rivals, has seen the US team laid off quite suddenly. Discovered through LinkedIn, a director of the game, Thaddeus Sasser, announced that the team had been let go from NetEase.

According to reports posted to Bluesky, all six of the team based in the US have since been let go.

NetEase is a Chinese company behind a large swath of online games. The company has seen huge success with Marvel Rivals, with an estimated earning of over $130 million in its first month.

However, NetEase centers its development in China, where the core team won’t be affected. According to industry analyst and Director of Research & Insights at Niko Partners, Daniel Ahmad, this is part of NetEase’s “broader reconsideration of… overseas investments and studios.” He also notes that funding for these teams has been “pulled” over the last year.

In August of last year, NetEase began to shutter Japanese studio, Ouka Studios. It was also only days since NetEase-backed studio, Liquid Swords confirmed it had laid off staff. Liquid Swords has yet to release a game. In September 2024, support studio Skybox Labs, a subsidiary based in Vancouver, had let go of 25 people.

NetEase also laid off Chinese developers working on Hyper Front (Operation Apocalypse in some regions), after it failed to break through.

Industry journalist Stephen Totillo posted a statement from a NetEase spokesperson, who confirmed that this was part of the company’s wider plans. The statement claims that this move is to “optimize development efficiency for the game.”

It also confirmed that the game’s overall development wouldn’t be affected, saying that NetEase is “investing more, not less into the evolution and growth of this game.”

The games industry has been ravaged by layoffs since 2024 started, with most companies seeing talent across the world lose their jobs. It’s estimated that 14, 600 jobs were cut as it reckons with overestimating the growth spurred on by the COVID pandemic.

With everyone inside for months, gaming and tech saw a massive boom. This resulted in teams swelling in size, and companies not looking ahead. As things have normalized since then, huge swaths of people have lost their jobs in the wake that those levels are no longer sustainable. Elsewhere, the rising costs worldwide have also contributed to industry layoffs.

Featured image: NetEase/Marvel Rivals

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