Ghost of Yōtei Studio Sucker Punch Cuts 24 Jobs Ahead of Next Project

The Sucker Punch layoffs are the first thing everyone is talking about today, and that is fair. Still, one small detail tucked into the news points to something more hopeful, and it is worth looking at even as the situation is rough. The studio behind Ghost of Yōtei has cut 24 people.

Early reports put the number at 26, but the final figure is 24. That might not sound huge next to the big AAA names you have in mind, yet Sucker Punch only has around 200 employees. Losing about 24 people means roughly one-eighth of the entire team is gone.

The news came out in an internal email to staff that somehow reached the press.

In it, the studio said it had closely examined market challenges and what the team needs for its next project, which led to staffing reductions across several positions. The message added that the company did not make the decision lightly, that it is putting support in place for affected colleagues, and that there is no way around the fact that it is a hard day.

It closed by saying MIT would share more details about the future the following week. Keep that last line in mind, because it matters later. There is no way to dress up the Sucker Punch layoffs as anything but painful, and the timing makes it worse. The Echoes of Sekigahara expansion arrived on October 1, and it's arguably the studio's best DLC.

It holds its own next to the base game and, in a few areas, goes beyond it. It even tops inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood, which still holds up well. If you are partway through Echoes of Sekigahara right now, the news stings a little more. Even if you finished it two weeks ago, the situation feels the same: the team shipped a hit, followed it with a standout expansion, and now one-eighth of the studio is out of work.

That raises an uncomfortable point many people are making: if a studio can release a successful game and a well-received expansion and still cut staff, it is hard to say which studios are safe. For fans, the Sucker Punch layoffs also raise a practical concern about what the team can deliver next.

Echoes of Sekigahara shows what the studio can do at its best, which makes the news harder to swallow.

The numbers back up the idea that the game did well. Since launch, Ghost of Yōtei has drawn comparisons to Ghost of Tsushima and plenty of controversy for various reasons. It hasn't matched Tsushima, and next to that game, it lags.

Even so, it is closing in on six million sales, which is a strong result by any reasonable standard. Sucker Punch is a small team of around 200 people; the game took five years to build, and with a couple more years of sales it could reach eight or nine million. Tsushima went past 10 million, so the gap exists, but Ghost of Yōtei has had real staying power.

That is the common reaction, and it's fair. The game has done extraordinarily well for what it is. The main complaint has always been that it did not match the original, but judged on its own, it succeeded, and the Sucker Punch layoffs still followed. One possible reason is worth considering, and it ties into that closing line of the email. The Sucker Punch layoffs could point to a brand-new IP as the studio's next project.

Picture the team looking at roughly 200 people, even though the real number is a bit higher, and deciding what an entirely new project needs. With a new game, nobody knows exactly how things will go. They would expect four or five years of development and a general sense of the budget, and they would likely expect to build the team back up over time.

Trimming before a new project happens more often than you might think.

These are real people who lost their jobs, and you shouldn't brush that aside, but it is a pattern in the industry. A post pointed out that Insomniac trimmed staff before Spider-Man 2 came out. You could argue it was preparation for the sequel, but Spider-Man 2 didn't reach the first Spider-Man's numbers and still performed extremely well for what it was.

The same reasoning could work whether the studio is making a new IP or another Ghost game. Say the team figures it simply does not need this many people right now. Next year will get experimental and a bit strange, and nobody will know exactly what is going on. There may be redundancies, or roles that aren't needed at all. As the years pass, the studio would hire again, not necessarily the same people, but people in general.

By the time the next game launches in about four years, the studio would probably be about the same size as it is today. If it hires more than 24 people over the next two or three years, it would end up bigger than before. The studio's track record supports that view. It has stayed on budget and on schedule, and Nate Fox said in interviews last year that the team works to a strict plan and feels good about it.

The plan is not wearing the studio down either. Sucker Punch releases a game every five years, has always been ready for that cycle, and has delivered each time. It runs like a fairly steady machine, and it will likely get through the Sucker Punch layoffs.

The cuts could also be temporary.

If the studio hires people back over the coming years, or even brings on more, then the Sucker Punch layoffs would end up as a short-term trim rather than a permanent loss. That brings us back to the last line of the email, which points to more details next week.

It is tempting to think that means the studio's next game gets revealed then, but the message was internal, sent from the studio to its own staff, so it is unlikely to reach the public that quickly. There is another angle, though. Next week, the quarterly reports are expected, and they should cover July through September.

PlayStation could include Yōtei in its report, mention that Sucker Punch had to scale back, and share a sales figure, perhaps 5.9 million. It might then add a line about looking forward to the studio's new IP, worded in the more formal, corporate language you would expect from that kind of document.

It is easy to go back and forth on this. At first you might think the next game could be revealed next week, then the internal nature of the email suggests otherwise, and then the quarterly report brings the possibility back, since PlayStation and Sony could slip in something small.

Announcing a third Ghost game in a financial report seems unlikely, and that is a prediction, not a hope.

The email could also be the studio telling its own people what it's decided, whether that is another inFAMOUS game or a brand-new IP, along with the plan. Nobody knows yet whether any of that reaches the public. None of this changes what the people affected are going through, and the Sucker Punch layoffs are a real loss for the studio, no matter how the next few years play out.

Still, a game announcement wouldn't erase the cuts, but it would help balance things out and get plenty of fans excited. For now, the next signal could come when PlayStation publishes its quarterly reports, so keep an eye on that week. The Sucker Punch layoffs may sting today, yet the studio's recent track record gives you reason to expect a bounce-back