Star Wars Zero Company Developer Bit Reactor Lays Off Staff Weeks After Rehiring Part of Its Furloughed Team

Star Wars Zero Company developer Bit Reactor has laid off an unspecified number of staff, according to multiple developers who confirmed their departures on LinkedIn this week. The news comes just weeks after the studio began bringing part of its furloughed team back to work, following a turbulent stretch that saw Bit Reactor furlough most of its staff in the lead up to the tactics game’s August launch.

Who’s Affected

Senior environment artist Ryan Lopez, who spent close to four years at the studio and helped build the exterior of the game’s central hub area known as The Den, said November 6 was his last day. “While it stings, I’m really proud of what we built together,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post thanking his former colleagues. In a follow up post the next day, Lopez clarified that he had remained on furlough rather than being one of the employees the studio had already brought back onto full pay, suggesting staff who returned to the project last month have not been affected by this latest round of departures, at least for now.

More Departures Across the Team

UI engineer Tyler Eichten, who worked on much of the game’s on screen interface during tactical missions, also announced he had been let go, as did quality assurance analyst Ryan Mosher. A departing producer, Michael Blackard, thanked Bit Reactor’s leadership for the opportunity and said he was hopeful about eventually returning to the studio.

Zero Company’s tactical missions earned some of the best reviews of any Star Wars game in years, even as Bit Reactor struggled behind the scenes.

A Rocky Road Since Launch

Zero Company launched on August 27 to some of the best reviews a Star Wars game has received in over two decades, but Bit Reactor reportedly ran out of most of its money in the weeks before release and furloughed roughly 80 percent of its staff as a result. The game went on to sell an estimated 1 million copies within its first month, and Bit Reactor rehired part of its furloughed team shortly after, releasing a first major patch not long after that. Beyond that patch, the studio has said little publicly about the game’s future, and it’s still unclear how many employees in total have now lost their jobs, or whether further layoffs could follow.

Bit Reactor has not issued an official statement on the layoffs at the time of writing.

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Picture Source: Electronic Arts