Marvel Rivals has seen a huge wave of players jump into the Hero shooter, but just as the studio was gearing up for this week's Season 1.5 update, the entire US-based team was laid offTech09:43, 19 Feb 2025Marvel Rivals will now seemingly be developed solely in China(Image: NetEase Games)Marvel Rivals has been a rare example of a free-to-play debut that keeps pulling in players, and while Overwatch Season 15 kicked off for its rival yesterday, Netease has laid off an entire team just days before the next update.The game, which is in the middle of its first season of content, was co-developed between two Netease teams; one in the US, and one in China, where the company is based. The Seattle team is reportedly tasked with level design and gameplay.Posting on LinkedIn yesterday, Thaddeus Sasser, who was Game Director on Marvel Rivals, revealed that he had been laid off, along with the rest of the Seattle team.This week sees The Human Torch and The Thing added(Image: Netease/Marvel)This is such a weird industry, Sasser said. My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games and were just laid off!Sasser took the opportunity to focus on his colleagues that were also let go, while the game's Level Designer Jack Burrows said "Welp, just got laid off from my job working on Marvel Rivals with NetEase.""Was an enormous pleasure to work with my American coworkers who join me in this sad culling.""Just couldn't dodge that big boot I guess, no matter how big the success of the gig."While layoffs have become a sad part of the games industry after a horrendous 2024, it's surprising to see a company lay off an entire team with the game hitting 10 million players in just 72 hours.Marvel Rivals has attracted a lot of Overwatch players(Image: NetEase Games)Last year saw thousands of layoffs across studios and publishers of all sizes, and some have suggested Netease will now look to rehire for those roles in China.Mat Piscatella, Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana, posted on Bluesky to say "It [Marvel Rivals] has been a massive hit, and one of the few games that has been able to break through the live service wall," pointing to it being among the top 5 games in active users across multiple platforms.Just before publishing this story, Netease published a statement, shared by Game File's Stephen Totilo."We recently made the difficult decision to adjust Marvel Rivals' development team structure for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency for the game. This resulted in a reduction of a design team based in Seattle that is part of a larger global design function in support of Marvel Rivals.""We appreciate the hard work and dedication of those affected and will be treating them confidentially and respectfully with recognition for their individual contributions.""We want to reassure our fanbase that the core development team for Marvel Rivals, which continues to be led by Lead Producer Weicong Wu and Game Creative Director Guangyun Chen in Guangzhou, China, remains fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience.""We are investing more, not less, into the evolution and growth of this game. We're excited to deliver new super hero characters, maps, features, and content to ensure an engaging live service experience for our worldwide player base."Article continues belowFor more on Marvel Rivals, check out what the devs had to say about a potential Switch 2 port of the free-to-play phenomenon.For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.