Update: Virtuos have confirmed they’ve made layoffs in a statement issued to Eurogamer. Around 200 workers in Asia have been let go, in addition to 70 in Europe, with “fewer than 10” of the latter at the French studios which worked on Oblivion Remastered.
A spokesperson for the company said the people affected were “primarily in teams facing lower occupancy and slower demand due to structural shifts in the industry”. Virtuos said they will be “providing separation packages, career transition assistance, and opportunities for redeployment across our global network where possible”.
The company added that they remain “fully committed” to their work on Oblivion Remastered, Cyberpunk 2077, and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.
Original story continues below:
Virtuos, the company best known for working with other studios to deliver the likes of Dark Souls Remastered, Oblivion Remastered and the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, are reportedly preparing to lay off staff. 300 people are cited as being at risk.
That’s according to reporting posted to Bluesky by Gauthier Andres of French outlet Origami. Andres’ post dropped same day Virtuos lead game designer Adrien Jouannet appeared on a Cyberpunk 2077 livestream to talk about the studio’s work with CD Projekt on the futuristic RPG’s latest update.
Andres reports that 300 Virtuos staff are at risk of redundancy, or around 7% of the company’s total staff. Virtuos’ website cites them as employing over 4200 people in total.
The report suggests these layoffs will primarily affect Virtuos’ workers in China, but that staff in other regions of the world will also be hit, including at the French studios that worked with Bethesda on Oblivion Remastered. As of writing, Virtuos have studios based in 25 locations across the world, with five, including UK-based Third Kind Games and a new studio in South Korea, having been acquired by the company since the start of August 2024.
INFO : des licenciements de masse sont est cours chez Virtuos, studio derrière Oblivion Remastered et le futur Metal Gear Solid Δ.
300 postes (7% de l’effectif) sont à risque chez ce spécialiste de la sous-traitance implanté en Asie, aux USA et en Europe, dont trois antennes en France.
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— Gauthier ‘Gautoz’ Andres (@gautoz.cool) 16 July 2025 at 15:45
“Virtuos is said to have made significant efforts on Oblivion, with a policy of over-delivering on quality relative to the budget, and a contract without royalties (no bonuses tied to the game’s success),” reads a translation of Andres’ post on ResetEra which closely matches a machine translation we’ve done, “The result: teams were pushed to their limits for a pure showcase project, with its profitability likely to be questioned.”
It also asserts that working on the likes of Oblivion Remastered and Snake Eater were part of an effort by Virtuos to shift their strategy towards working on bigger projects or series, rather than lighter remakes. We’ve reached out to Virtuos for comment.
If these layoffs do come to pass, they’d follow mass job cuts on the other side of the Oblivion Remastered equation. Bethesda owners Microsoft let around 9,000 staff go earlier month and cancelled three games, with some devs who were working on a now-canned MMO at ZeniMax currently left in limbo according to their union.
