According to Kotaku’s report and testimony from a former LinkedIn employee, Sony has fired an unknown number of individuals from San Diego-based Visual Arts Studio and PS Studios Malaysia.
According to Kotaku, staff were notified earlier this week that it will be their last day on March 7th, including developers who contributed to a variety of projects, including the recent cancelled live service game at Bend Studio. Visual Arts is an art and technical support studio that has worked for many years in other first-party studios on PlayStation, particularly the recent remaster of The Last of Us Parts 1 and 2.
Passthecontroller has identified many developers on LinkedIn and says they have been fired from the visual arts. One former Visual Arts employee said the layoffs were “due to cancellations of multiple projects.”
This is the second round of visual arts layoffs over the past two years after another wave that affected an unknown number of individuals in 2023. It is unclear how many people remain in visual arts and what the studio is currently working on. Passthecontroller contacted PlayStation for comment.
The layoffs have contributed to the ongoing trends in layoffs and project cancellations in the gaming industry, and have been reported since it was estimated that more than 10,000 game developers were fired in 2023. That number rose above 14,000 in 2024, and in 2025 there are far more vague numbers to reduce more studios reporting the exact number affected, but the trend continues.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter at Passthecontroller. You can find her posts at Bluesky @Duckvalentine.bsky.social. Do you have any tips for the story? Send to [email protected].
