NetEase Lays Off Marvel Rivals Director And Multiple Members Of The Rivals Team

Marvel Rivals was the last smash-hit success that 2024 had, right at the tail end of the year with its December launch. Going into 2025, it’s more than kept that momentum up, and is consistently one of the most-played games every day.

In some ways, it’s done the impossible. It entered the industry as a new live-service shooter, a new free-to-play game, and not only did it have a strong launch, it is successfully pulling players away from another major live-service title.

For now, it’s one of the most popular games in the industry, and all things point to it being around for a long time. And yet, NetEase Games has laid off Seattle-based game director Thaddeus Sasser, and an unknown number of developers along with him. Sasser claims that his whole team at the Seattle studio, was laid off.

“This is such a weird industry,” Sasser began in a post on his LinkedIn page. “My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games…and were just laid off!”

With what seems to be a ‘moving ever-forward’ attitude, Sasser continues by saying “Oh well! Times are tough all over,” and then begins recommending one of his just laid off team members to anyone else on the platform who may be hiring.

NetEase Games has yet to release a statement regarding the layoff, and it’s unclear to pretty much everyone who comes across the news as to why this happened. It’s still tragic, but at least understandable, when a studio shuts down after a live service game failed to take off.

Marvel Rivals being a massive success makes it all the more bewildering. And the series of games industry layoffs over the last two years trudges forward.

Source – [Thaddeus Sasser on LinkedIn via Kotaku]