In a year marked by significant gaming industry layoffs, Netflix has closed down a studio dedicated to an original 'AAA multiplatform' title. The Southern California-based studio, known internally as team 'Blue,' boasted employees with experience from franchises such as Halo, Overwatch, and God of War. Game File was the first to report on the closure of this Netflix gaming developer.
Chacko Sonny, a veteran of Overwatch, established the studio two years ago, making it Netflix's fifth in-house gaming team at the time. In April 2023, Joseph Staten, former head of creative on Halo Infinite, joined Sonny at Netflix. Staten, who had spent nine years at Microsoft and worked on the original Halo games at Bungie, described himself as the creative director at the studio, working on a 'brand-new AAA multiplatform game.'
Around the same time, Rafael Grassetti, former art director at Sony Santa Monica, also joined Netflix. However, following the closure of team 'Blue,' both Staten and Grassetti, along with Sonny, have left the company. In July, Netflix announced it had over 80 games in development, though its gaming business remains relatively small. This year has seen the loss of over 10,000 video game jobs, with Ubisoft, for example, laying off more employees in August. GameSpot has investigated these industry layoffs to understand the underlying causes.
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