For the third time this year, Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics has laid off employees: The company announced today that it’s making a “difficult but necessary” reorganization of its studios and team, and that as a result nearly 30 people will be put out of work.
The cuts will be made “across various departments and projects,” Crystal Dynamics said on LinkedIn, “as we restructure the company and business for our next generation.”
“To our players—as the realities of the industry continue to evolve, we’ve made these painful choices as a way to optimize the continued development of our flagship Tomb Raider game, as well as shaping the rest of the studio to make new games for the future. We appreciate the continued support of our players, our colleagues, and our partners during this transition and look forward to sharing the team’s amazing new work with the world in the future.”
This is, as noted, the third time Crystal Dynamics has laid off employees in 2025. The first round of cuts occurred in March, when the studio ditched 17 people—also a “difficult decision”—in order to “better align our current business needs and the studio’s future success.” Then in August, it terminated an undisclosed number of employees following Microsoft’s cancellation of the Perfect Dark reboot, which it was co-developing alongside The Initiative.
And now this, nearly 30 more out the door—not a huge number compared to say, the 9,000 that Microsoft axed in July, but a not-insignificant portion of a studio that has to be working pretty close to the bone by now. And, I have to note, with nothing to show for it at this point: Crystal Dynamics announced the new Unreal Engine 5-powered Tomb Raider project in 2022, but all we’ve seen of it since was a single piece of utterly unremarkable concept art released in early 2024.
