In a stunningly bleak encapsulation of the current state of the video game industry, EA has laid off an Apex Legends writer just 24 hours after revealing the character she had been writing for over a year.
A Bloomberg report surfaced on Tuesday that claimed EA had laid off between 300 and 400 workers, and Apex Legends studio Respawn soon confirmed that it had been impacted by the downsizing.
EA also confirmed that an unspecified number of employees had been let go as part of an effort that "allocates resources in service of driving future growth." Bleck.
We've now heard from a specific employee who was made redundant just one day after EA revealed the Apex Legends character she wrote, the new sharpshooter Sparrow.
On Monday, now-former narrative designer Heather Woodward was celebrating the launch of her character, who she had been writing "for well over a year," and who she referred to as "my first born." Today, she shared a screenshot of a marketing email promoting Sparrow sent the very day she was laid off.
"I mean it's objectively pretty funny to get a promo email for the character I wrote the day I'm let go," she said on Bluesky.
Talk about rubbing salt into the wound. Given the circumstances, I'm in awe of Woodward's composure here. If I was in the same situation, I'm really not sure I'd be able to indulge in the painful irony with the sort of grace and humility on display in her social media posts.
"Well, this is awkward but… I was just mass-downsized at Respawn," she said after learning of her position's redundancy. "These things happen and my time with Apex has been a top to bottom blast, my favorite job I've ever had. It's been a true joy to write Sparrow, I'll continue to be insufferable about him for weeks to come."
