{"id":1573526,"date":"2026-05-08T16:15:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T16:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/EWcqQg6By6DVLDH7JCJiQ5"},"modified":"2026-05-08T16:15:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T16:15:21","slug":"2k-games-confirms-layoffs-at-project-ethos-shooter-studio-and-hints-at-new-design-direction-its-become-clear-that-changes-need-to-be-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/2k-games-confirms-layoffs-at-project-ethos-shooter-studio-and-hints-at-new-design-direction-its-become-clear-that-changes-need-to-be-made\/","title":{"rendered":"2K Games confirms layoffs at Project Ethos shooter studio and hints at new design direction: ‘It’s become clear that changes need to be made’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2K Games studio 31st<\/sup> Union has confirmed the layoff of an undisclosed number of employees, first reported by GamesIndustry<\/a>, as it continues to develop Project Ethos, the free-to-play hero shooter announced in 2024.<\/p>\n

In a memo sent to 31st<\/sup> Union employees and shared with PC Gamer, 31st<\/sup> Union studio head Ben Brinkman, who left Respawn to take the role in October 2025, said “it’s become clear that changes need to be made to our team in order to realize our goals and deliver this experience for players.”<\/p>\n

“Our success is dependent on our ability to work more quickly and nimbly,” Brinkman wrote. “To do that, we’ve made the difficult decision to scale back our team to better align with where we are in development, which unfortunately means parting ways with some valued colleagues today.”<\/p>\n

It also sounds like Project Ethos itself is undergoing at least a minor change in direction. It was revealed to the world<\/a> in October 2024 as a “roguelike hero shooter,” although as PC Gamer editor Tyler Wilde noted at the time, “it’s not really a roguelike: You just get to pick from randomized sets of buffs throughout a match. Otherwise, it’s a third-person shooter that resembles Fortnite, but with hero characters who come with unique guns and abilities, and a low-stakes PvPvE extraction mode as its main attraction.”<\/p>\n

Brinkman, however, described it in somewhat vaguer terms in his layoff message, saying 31st<\/sup> Union “is committed to building a bold new game with a renewed direction and vision\u2014a skill-based PVP roguelike experience that will challenge and thrill players.” He added that the studio has “evolved as a team this past year in what has been a defining period of creative growth.”<\/p>\n

That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but I do have to wonder whether 2K has decided that Fortnite-styled extraction\/hero shooters are a riskier bet than it seemed a couple years ago. For every Arc Raiders<\/a>, there’s a Highguard<\/a> (and plenty of others), and not even heavyweights like Bungie are immune from the risks of wading into a genre already dominated by a few major hits: Marathon is a brilliant shooter<\/a> but it’s running one-tenth of Arc Raiders’ player counts on Steam, and Sony took an absolute hammering on it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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