In a crowded 2026, two of the year’s most critically acclaimed games are Star Wars properties. Star Wars Galactic Racer surprised many with its depth and mechanics, helping it reach #2 on the UK gaming charts and sparking viral social media posts. Thank you, Biddy Blas. The second game, Star Wars Zero Company, is an XCOM-like from former Firaxis employees that earned heaps of praise from critics and fans. Despite a strong launch, the studio furloughed much of its team to keep funds flowing, hiring many of them back months after launch. Now, the unfortunate news is out that some of those team members are once again out of work, this time for good.

Star Wars news site The Bespin Bulletin reports that BitReactor laid off staff from its development team at the end of last week. This information comes via “various employees across different departments.” Some affected staff who have posted on social media include major roles such as Senior Environment Artist Ryan Lopez, UI Engineer Tyler Eichten, Producer Michael Blackard, and Senior QA Analyst Ryan Mosher.

The game’s sales count as of October was over one million copies, and it’s likely that, given the team size and IP, that’s a bit short of what the studio needed to continue in active development. A trend many studios are following lately, big and small, is purging staff unnecessary to bug fixes and ongoing support for newly released games. It’s awful, point blank. We can talk about the economics of it all, and how studios need to stay alive, even if that means letting go of some staff who are inessential post-launch. Yet, the fact of the matter is people who worked hard on yet another game critics and fans love are out of work.

Star Wars Zero Company is a good game, and good games should mean staff are rewarded for their time, but that’s increasingly not the case. Forget rewards: staff should stay employed when a good game ships. That’s not the reality we live in with today’s games industry, and it’s unlikely to shift anytime soon. Let us know in the comments if you got a chance to check the game out, or have any thoughts on the current state of the industry.

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