Firaxis lays off employees after Marvel’s Midnight Suns disappointment

Layoffs at the strategy game studio despite development of Civilization 7

Firaxis Games, known for making brilliant strategy games like the Sid Meier’s Civilization and XCOM series, has parted ways with around 30 employees, according to a report by Axios. A move like this has unfortunately been expected after the studio’s parent company, Take-Two, ordered a cost-cutting program back in February 2023 to save around $50 million.

Firaxis is highly regarded in the turn-based strategy and tactics genres and its latest game, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, was well received by critics, earning several nominations as the best strategy game released in 2022. However, despite the title’s qualities and the star power of the Marvel brand, Midnight Suns turned out to be a commercial flop.

Back in February, Firaxis and Take-Two also confirmed that the next Sid Meier’s Civilization game was in development at the studio amidst some changes in the key personnel: Jake Solomon, the creative director of XCOM and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and Firaxis boss Steve Martin left the studio at the time.

Firaxis is currently pushing out a last wave of DLC for Civilization 6 with a series of leader packs and is continuing to support Midnight Suns with additional content as well, adding characters like Deadpool. Many strategy games have quite long lifespans, which means that Midnight Suns may well turn things around commercially in the long term, but that obviously won’t change any of the immediate consequences of its lack of success.