Reports: Over 200 QA Testers for Apex Legends Let Go by EA

Recently, EA has allegedly let go of more than 200 QA workers for Apex Legends before their contract was due to terminate. Since its launch in 2019, the battle royale from Respawn Entertainment and EA has grown in popularity to become one of the world’s most-played games. On Steam, it typically has hundreds of thousands of players and even had a brief mobile version, which is expected to end in 2021. However, a new report has cast doubt on the title’s success.

EA has recently made a disclosure about potential layoffs, despite the fact that both Respawn and EA are ambitious in their plans for the future of Apex Legends. The 16th competitive season of the popular shooter has recently launched, with design director Evan Nikolich proposing the game should last for 20 years similar to the highly successful Counter-Strike. During Season 16, Apex Legends managed to hit an all-time high record of over 500,000 players on Steam. Nevertheless, TheGamer has reported that EA will be laying off more than 200 QA staff members.

According to a report from TheGamer, a number of employees have confirmed EA’s layoffs with no effort to move the workers to other projects. Allegedly, the main casualties are from the Baton Rouge quality assurance team and some of those affected feel that they have been “replaced” by a UK-based QA team. The Apex Legends squad had been working with the UK-based team to educate them for the job, perceiving that EA was having them “coach their successors.”

According to some of the workers’ accounts, EA did not offer any clarification for the unexpected layoffs given to the Baton Rouge team. The team, which is responsible for providing Apex Legends QA, was only granted 60 days of severance pay despite having contracts until August. It is purported that the layoffs came from EA instead of Respawn, and some managers were surprised by the sudden firings. As of yet, EA has not released an official statement related to the Baton Rouge team’s layoff.

Within the past few years, mass layoffs have become commonplace in the gaming industry, which has seen a string of firings recently with the Overwatch League’s Los Angeles Gladiators and the Call of Duty League’s Los Angeles Guerillas potentially being dismantled. Financing troubles have been a major issue for Esports recently, impacting organizations like Team SoloMid, and the layoffs of Apex Legends are the most recent illustration of a concerning pattern in the gaming sector.

Apex Legends is out now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and smartphones.