- Primary Subject: Sucker Punch Layoffs
- Key Update: Sucker Punch has laid off 26 employees despite the success of its recent games.
- Status: published
- Last Verified: 2026-10-26
- Quick Answer: Sucker Punch has laid off 26 employees, highlighting the instability within the gaming industry even for successful studios.
Not even the success of Ghost of Tsushima and Yōtei is saving developer Sucker Punch from layoffs. The report comes via Aftermath, where a former Sucker Punch developer said the studio has fired 26 employees.
Shared anonymously with Aftermath, an internal email explaining the decision reads:
“After carefully observing the challenges in the market and reviewing the team needs for our next project, we've decided to make some staffing reductions. Several positions across Sucker Punch will be eliminated as a result.”
Aftermath also states that Sucker Punch is a relatively small studio of only 200 employees. Laying off 26 means they're downsizing by roughly 13%.
The email is vague enough to read like perfect corporate jargon, but it at least hints at what to expect from Sucker Punch in the future. My assumption is that it’ll be a game on a much smaller scale than the Ghost series.
That being said, a studio that has shipped close to 20 million copies over the past six years between Ghost of Tsushima and Yōtei facing layoffs is the perfect encapsulation of how unstable the gaming industry has become. Not even massive success at a AAA level will save you.
Fans can point to Yōtei “underperforming,” but the reality of the situation is that it was just as successful as Tsushima. Yōtei only launched on PS5, which removes a user base of potentially 120 million players that Tsushima had access to when it launched back in 2020 for the PS4. On top of that, Yōtei’s entry point was $10 more expensive.
In fact, Sony stated in February 2026 that Yōtei had outsold Tsushima in the “same period of time” following their respective releases. Launched in October 2025, Yōtei sold 3.3 million copies in its first month on the market.
As Sucker Punch pivots to its next project, the news serves as a grim reminder that even PlayStation’s premier single-player studios aren't immune to industry-wide downsizing.
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