Square Enix Lays Off UK and US Developers, Refocuses on Japan

3 hours ago7 min read

Square Enix is dropping the hammer on its Western dev teams, hitting the UK and US with another brutal round of layoffs as the legendary Final Fantasy publisher hard-pivots back to its Japanese homeland, and honestly, it feels like watching a streamer rage-quit an entire server. According to a deep dive by Video Games Chronicle, this isn't just a minor balance patch—it's a full-scale 'Overseas Structural Reform' that's part of a corporate strategy to consolidate development functions squarely in Japan, a move that could see over 100 developers in the UK alone getting the boot, with numbers potentially climbing to 140, while the US casualty count remains shrouded in mystery like a secret boss fight.The real kicker? This mass restructuring follows Square Enix's 2024 proclamation that it planned to go full aggro on implementing AI into its dev pipelines, and a slide deck for investors, spotted by IGN, explicitly targets automating a staggering '70 percent of QA and debugging tasks in game development by the end of 2027'—so, yeah, it doesn't take a lore master to connect the dots that these human roles are being systematically phased out for algorithms. This is just the latest chapter in Square Enix's decade-long saga of trying to nope out of Western game development; remember earlier this year when they seemingly ghosted developer People Can Fly, leading to project cancellations? Or the 2024 layoffs that had everyone in the Discord spamming F? Let's not forget the 2013 vintage cuts where they practically fire-sold iconic studios like Eidos-Montréal, Square Enix Montréal, and Crystal Dynamics to the Embracer Group for a cool $300 million, a move that felt like trading away your entire legendary weapon set for a handful of potions.For anyone who's been following the grind, this refocus on Japan is a massive bet on their home turf, doubling down on the JRPG DNA that built their empire, from the epic sprawl of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to the meticulous world-building of Dragon Quest, while seemingly de-prioritizing the Western-style action games that never quite hit the same Metacritic high scores. The community reaction is, predictably, a salt mine, with forums lighting up over concerns about the soul of game development being outsourced to neural networks and what this means for the future of beloved franchises that had Western influences.It’s a high-stakes gambit, like betting your entire endgame loadout on a single, untested build—if it pays off, Square Enix could emerge as a leaner, hyper-focused Japanese powerhouse, but if it fails, they risk becoming an insular relic while the rest of the industry embraces global collaboration and diverse creative voices. We’ve reached out to Square Enix for confirmation and will update this post faster than a speedrun if we hear back, but for now, the mood in the channel is decidedly grim, with devs on both sides of the pond facing an uncertain respawn timer.

#Square Enix

#layoffs

#restructuring

#Japan

#AI

#QA automation

#featured