Update - 28/1/2019:We finally know how many people lost their roles at DayBreak Game Company last year.
According to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice filed on December 19th by the State of California's Employment Development Department, 25 people were laid off.
That's somewhat lower than the 70 figure that was touted at the end of last year - but good luck to all affected.
Original story - 10/12/2018: The studio behind H1Z1, EverQuest II and PlanetSide 2 DayBreak Game Company has made layoffs.
That's according to Variety, which has confirmation from the company that staff have lost their job but has stopped short of giving an actual figure to the actual number of people who have been laid off. However, former studio president John Smedley has taken to Twitter saying that "70 people is a lot", potentially the number of staff that have lost their job.
Smedley went on to show his rage at his former company for laying people off right before Christmas.
There were also rumours that the layoffs were largely happening at DayBreak's Austin, Texas office, something that a spokesperson for the studio has refuted.
“No, that is not correct. Our Austin office is not closing," they said.
“We are optimizing our structure to ensure we best position ourselves for continued success in the years to come. This effort has required us to make some changes within the organization and we are doing everything we can to support those impacted in this difficult time. As we look to improve efficiencies and realign resources, we remain focused on supporting our existing games and development of our future titles.”
DayBreak Game Company was formerly known as Sony Online Entertainment was spun out from the PlayStation giant by an independent investor in early 2015. The company is arguably best-known for its battle royale title, H1Z1 - now known as H1: Battle Royale after yet another rebrand - which launched out of Early Access in March 2018. Within a week of release, the game went free-to-play, which isn't exactly a positive indication of how the project was doing.
In April 2018, just over a month post-launch, DayBreak announced job cuts.
