Sega has announced a new round of layoffs that will hit Sega Europe, Creative Assembly and Hardlight. But the biggest news is the sale of Relic Entertainment.
According to Sega, Relic Entertainment, probably best known for Company of Heroes and Age of Empires, is being sold to a newly established holding company owned by UK investment company Emona Capital LLP. However, the buyer requested that details of the sale not be disclosed so we currently don’t know how much Relic has been sold for.
In May 2023, Sega laid off 121 employees at Relic.
“We have an important announcement for our players and fans.” reads Relic’s official statement. “With an external investor, Relic Entertainment will become an independently-run development studio. This is a huge change for us, but one thing does not change: we want to create amazing experiences for our players.”
Relic confirmed that they will continue to support their existing titles such as Company of Heroes 3 which will get its 1.6 update in April.
The sale of Relic is due to SEGA making substantial cuts to its European studios, resulting in another 240 employees losing their jobs. This is after the 250 people that were cut last year.
The majority of these cuts will apparently be at Creative Assembly, the studio that creates the Total War games. This is presumably because the Total War series has seen a decline in sales over the past year or two The last game, Total War: Pharoah, struggled to make an impact, only reaching a peak player count on Steam of just over 5,000.
In December 2023, SEGA released its financial results and said, “In the Consumer area, although we released some new titles in Q3, including Sonic Superstars, Endless Dungeon, and Total War: Pharaoh, sales went sluggish during the holiday sales season,”
Meanwhile, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Persona 3 have done extremely well, setting sale records for their respective developers.
SEGA Europe will also be hit by layoffs, as will Hardlight. No exact numbers were given.
“I want to sincerely apologise for the worry and understandable distress this news will cause, particularly for those directly affected.” said Jurgen Post, head of Sega Europe. “These decisions have been incredibly tough to make, and they follow meticulous consideration and deliberation with leadership teams across the business. Change is necessary to secure the future of our games business, and to ensure that we are well placed to deliver the best possible experiences to our players going forward.”
“We need to streamline, focus on what we are good at, and position ourselves as best we can for the road ahead. In order to do that, we need to respond to the changing economic landscape and the challenges we’re facing in the way we develop our products and bring them to market.”
While this is devastating news for everyone affected, at least Relic Entertainment will live to fight another day. Perhaps this may end up being a new beginning for the company.