Skydance Games Lays Off At Least 25 Staff After Warner Bros Merger
Skydance Games has laid off at least 25 staff, about a month after its parent company's merger with Warner Bros, Video Game Chronicle reported on 10 November 2026.
The cuts reached a studio that has changed shape several times this year. In June, Paramount Skydance combined Skydance Games, Skydance Interactive and Skydance New Media into a single group called Paramount Games Studio. The wider parent companies, Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros, have since completed a merger valued at US$110 billion. Their video game divisions were then brought together as well.
A Skydance spokesperson confirmed the layoffs to Variety. The company said it was carrying out reorganisation and operational changes and scaling back some projects, and that the moves had affected a number of roles. The spokesperson did not give a breakdown by team in that statement.
The number of people affected was first reported by The Wrap, which said Paramount Games lead engineer David Vera had posted on LinkedIn that at least 25 of his colleagues had been let go. Staff reactions have been shared in public as well. Rebecca Vessel, a senior gameplay and game AI programmer at Skydance Games, wrote that she had not been affected personally, but that most of her team had been laid off.
For readers outside the industry, a studio layoff is a cut in staff, usually made to fit a company's budget and plans. A project that is scaled down may still continue, but with fewer people and a smaller scope. Neither Skydance nor the reports say which games are affected, and no new release dates were announced alongside the cuts.
Big media mergers often lead to overlapping teams being combined, and that process can take months. Skydance's statement describes the cuts as part of that kind of reorganisation. The company has not said how many further changes are planned.
For the people affected, the practical questions are about severance, references and where to look for new work. For players, the immediate effect is less clear. Skydance has not said whether any title in development has been cancelled or moved.
