Guild Wars 2 Studio ArenaNet Hit With Layoffs, Projects Under Development Canceled

February 22, 2019 Erhan Altay Comments

The 2019 Industry bloodletting continues. Leaks of a massive round of layoffs at ArenaNet were leaked on February 20th and were confirmed by NCSoft which owns ArenaNet, on February 21st.

The layoffs are likely due to stalling revenue across NCSoft's PC lineup, and ArenaNet's inability to finish several projects which have been under development for a number of years. The bulk of the layoffs are likely to hit those working on the unfinished projects which are now likely to be canceled.

According to Kotaku which broke the story, ArenaNet currently has around 400 employees. We don't yet know how many of those employees will be laid off, but will update the story as it develops.

Guild Wars 2 revenues have stalled, with rumors that there is no major expansion planned for 2019. NCSoft will also be combining ArenaNet's publishing activities with those of NCSoft West, consolidating those back-end operations.

A post on the official Guild Wars 2 forums reassured players that the game was still being supported with Season 5 on its way. ArenaNet made a statement earlier this week pledging to support their previous title, Guild Wars, for years to come as well. ArenaNet even revived the original Guild Wars support website.