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Epic Games denies rumors of entire Mediatonic team being laid off

Though layoffs did reportedly hit the developer, Epic Games claims that Mediatonic's Fall Guys remains a 'company priority.'

TJ Denzer

September 29, 2023 10:45 AM

Image via Epic Games

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This week saw a surprising mass layoff occur at Epic Games, and among them may have been quite a few Mediatonic developers. However, though speculation and rumors made the situation seem grim, Epic Games has denied laying off a massive amount of the Mediatonic team. On the contrary, the company claims that Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout remains a “company priority” within Epic’s gaming library.

Rumor about major firings within Mediatonic came alongside reports of the 900 employee mass layoff throughout all of Epic Games. After several Mediatonic employees and former employees shared disappointment at the situation at Epic, such as in a Twitter post from Ed Fear in which the Mediatonic logo is rearranged into the word “DECIMATION,” speculation arose as to just how hard the Fall Guys developer had been hit by the layoffs. To that end, Video Games Chronicle reached out to Epic about the severity of layoffs affecting Mediatonic. Epic denied rumor that the entire Mediatonic team was laid off and claimed the studio and its IP would remain intact for the time being.

“Mediatonic’s work on Fall Guys continues to be a company priority,” a spokesperson told VGC.

This should come as just a little bit of relief despite the severity of the situation at Epic Games. Fall Guys has been a blast, getting all sorts of crossovers up to and including having Final Fantasy 14 content just a couple months ago. Mediatonic itself was acquired by Epic Games along with the Fall Guys IP back in 2021. With Epic’s help, Fall Guys went free-to-play, got crossplay, and was ported to Switch in 2022. Nonetheless, Epic seems to have found itself in a rough spot this season with Tim Sweeney sharing that the company spent far more than it was making, forcing it to tighten the belt and go through with layoffs this week.

It's currently known how badly the layoffs affected Mediatonic since Epic didn’t reveal that info, but the company claims it was less than the dire situation described by rumors. Stay tuned as we continue to follow this situation for further updates and details.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.