Splash Damage places entire studio into consultation ahead of redundancies

Splash Damage has announced a consultation process affecting all staff at the Bromley-based studio, which will conclude with significant redundancies. Staff were notified today, and the news was shared publicly via a post on LinkedIn.

The Bromley-based studio was acquired by unnamed private equity investors in September, at which time it said it would continue to operate under the existing leadership team. It was previously owned by Chinese conglomerate Tencent, which acquired the studio when it purchased poultry firm Leyou in 2020. Leyou bought the studio from founder Paul Wedgewood in 2016.

The studio had previously laid off staff at the start of the year following the cancellation of online action game Transformers: Reactivate, which was revealed in 2022 but never shown publicly. In 2023 it announced it was working on an open-world survival game codenamed Project Astrid, in collaboration with streamers Christopher “Sacriel” Ball and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek.

The company’s last shipped game was 2020’s Outcasters, a multiplayer shooter built for Google’s short-lived Stadia platform.

The news is another hammer blow to game development in London, following Square Enix’s recent cutbacks to its Western operations placing over 100 jobs in what was Eidos at risk. Sony closed its London studio in 2024.

Following the Tencent acquisition, CEO Richard Jolly told Gamesindustry.biz he was “the most excited I’ve ever been for where we’re headed.” But in 2024 both Tencent and rival Chinese firm NetEase pulled back on their Western expansion, triggering a series of divestments and closures. Fellow Tencent-owned UK operation Sumo Group cut 15% of staff in 2024 followed by further job losses in January of this year, and sold off publishing label Secret Mode in March.

Yong-yi Zhu, VP and head of business operations, strategy, and compliance at Tencent Games, told GamesIndustry.biz in August that the company had “no plans at the moment to pull out” of Western studios, but “you may see a reduction in investment in certain places, and I think part of that is just the realities of the industry and the dynamics of the industry.”

Splash Damage was founded in 2001 by a team who’d come together through the Quake modding scene, and rose to prominence with the release of free multiplayer title Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It went on to create Enemy Territory: Quake Wars in 2007, Brink in 2011 and F2P release Dirty Bomb in 2014. The studio specialised in multiplayer shooters and mode design, and prior to the Tencent acquisition was a regular collaborator with Microsoft on titles including Gears of War 5 and the remasters of Gears of War and Halo. It produced the well-received Gears of War Tactics in 2020.