Hi-Rz Studios has fired a number of studios’s staff, just a month after launching the sequel of MOBA Smite 2 in the form of a free beta version. It seems that the management has cut at least 20-30 jobs and the whole number is higher. Therefore, three other games that have been operating for a long time will no longer receive any updates. Smite, Paladins and Rogue Company will have no one to control the cannons, so they will be left behind to collect webs from now. Although they will still be able to play.
“Before the challenging market conditions, Hi-Rz is reducing forces,” the studio said in a discordable message discovered by Dexerto. “Smite 2 will continue to be the focus of newly arranged activities. These reductions will allow a new stream of stable content and the continuous development of SMITE 2, while arranging group costs with revenue.”
Hi-Rz did not state the exact number of people they had from the workplace. But a affected Megathread Reddit consists of 23 people at the time of writing, while Smite Youtuber “Hayzer” estimates 50-60 people who were attacked. Among the affected people, programmers, UI artists, folk QA, marketers and producers – a full package of the role.
This only happened just four months after the last job cut at the company, it was a cut in June 2023 (about 30 unemployed people found). All these followers have been shown to be the door to provide Smite 2 “sustainable”, according to Hi-Rz Management. The executive director of Hi-Rz, Stewart Chisam, deleted his social media account on X after the consequences of firing this week.
For all games that are not Smite 2, the studio is still holding Paladins even if it will not see any updates. “We plan to keep the servers and content available as long as possible to allow you to continue enjoying the game,” they said. The first Smite will be treated the same for now. The previous dismissal has seen these two games supported by “small teams of light updates”. But now it seems that even those small teams are not wanted by the company.
I am not a brother, but in general everything is not good for Hi-Rz. In addition to the talent bleeding from the studio continues, now they have participated in a MOBA but frankly not interesting according to the critic Matt (RPS in Hoa Binh), who noted that Valve’s deadlock has gone halfway and looks quite strong.
It continues to be a few difficult years for workers in the game industry. We hold a recent dismissal card. But to be honest, it’s hard to catch and report all. Especially when companies like BioWare refuse to speak in a simple language about cutting their work.
