Embracer founder and executive chair Lars Wingefors, the main architect behind the company's infamous $2b disaster from 2023 that resulted in thousands of lost jobs, canceled games, and shuttered studios, says the restructuring has been about giving a select number of developers and IP the chance to "prove themselves."
It's irresponsible and unfair to pin the industry's ongoing layoff crisis on any one company, but Wingefors is right to point out in a recent open letter to shareholders that "we have become closely associated with industry layoffs." According to a report published by marketing firm Udonis, Embracer laid off 7,800 employees, canceled more than 80 games, and shut down dozens of studios in the two-year period between 2023 and 2025 following the collapse of its deal with the reportedly Saudi-backed Savvy Games. Some Embracer-owned entities, like Deus Ex studio Eidos Montreal, are still being impacted by that fallout as recently as March 2026.
