NetEase Games Dismisses North American Team of Marvel Rivals

Marvel Rivals has captured the gaming community’s attention, becoming a standout hit this year with a huge fan base on Steam alone. Despite its success, the game’s developer, NetEase, recently made the surprising decision to lay off a team from its Seattle studio responsible for the game’s development.

Thaddeus Sasser, the game director, took to LinkedIn to share this news, highlighting that level designer Garry McGee was among those affected. Jack Burrows, another level designer, supported this announcement with his own post.

Reflecting on the situation, Sasser expressed his disbelief saying, “This is such a weird industry. My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games […] and were just laid off!”

Sasser further explained that his team had been dedicated to innovating new level and gameplay mechanics for their superhero-themed shooter game.

We’re awaiting a response from NetEase regarding these layoffs and will update with any new information as it becomes available.

Currently, Marvel Rivals is riding high, ranking among the top five games with the most active users on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Steam, as reported by industry analyst Mat Piscatella from Circana. Its popularity on Steam is also noteworthy, consistently drawing around 200,000 concurrent players. This week marks an exciting phase for the game as it enters the latter part of its first season, introducing two new heroes: the Thing and Human Torch.