Meta shuts 3 Austin gaming studios, cuts 100+ jobs

At least 100 workers seem to have been laid off after Meta shut down three Austin-based gaming studios amid broader funds cuts, in line with social media posts from staff.

Meta Platforms Inc., the mum or dad firm of Facebook and Instagram, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark late Wednesday. However, the corporate beforehand introduced plans to chop as much as 30% of its metaverse funds in late 2025.

Those cuts, a part of a broader shift into wearable gadgets and synthetic intelligence, seem to have reached Austin, with workers reporting that Armature Studio, Twisted Pixel Games and Sanzaru Games have been shut down earlier this month.

“I’ve just been laid off. It appears the entire Twisted Pixel Games studio has been shut down along with Sanzaru and Armature too,” Andy Gentile, recognized on LinkedIn as a lead degree designer at Twisted Pixel Games, wrote on the social media web site final week.

Efren Flores, recognized on LinkedIn as a producer at Sanzaru, wrote, “Unfortunately, due to a strategy change by Meta, Sanzaru, as well as Armature and Twisted Pixel, were shut down. I and hundreds of others were affected by layoffs.”

Armature Studio was based by builders behind Nintendo’s acclaimed Metroid Prime franchise. It started making video games in Austin in 2008 and has labored on titles together with the Borderlands franchise and Fortnite. Meta acquired the studio in 2022.

Twisted Pixel was acquired by Meta’s Oculus Studios in 2020. The studio is understood for video games resembling The Maw, Marvel’s Deadpool VR and Wilson’s Heart.

Sanzaru Games, which is predicated in California, maintained operations in Austin and is understood for titles together with Asgard’s Wrath 2 and Marvel Powers United VR.

The Meta layoffs are affecting workers nationwide, with the corporate saying it laid off about 1,500 staff from its Reality Labs division, which develops digital and augmented actuality {hardware}. The cuts characterize about 10% of the division’s workforce. Meta described the transfer as a shift in funding from digital actuality merchandise to its wearables division, which builds good glasses and wrist-based computing gadgets.

Meta started investing closely in digital actuality as a part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s effort to reshape social networking and the web. Zuckerberg acquired Oculus, a digital actuality startup, in 2014, laying the inspiration for Meta’s {hardware} enterprise.

The layoffs additionally come as Meta will increase spending on synthetic intelligence. The firm has mentioned it expects to speculate billions of {dollars} in information facilities and has stepped up recruiting for AI researchers.