Sucker Punch Productions has announced layoffs cutting 26 jobs a little more than a year after Ghost of Yotei launched on PS5. IGN, citing Aftermath, says the Bellevue studio now sits near 200 people after the reductions.
Studio leadership told staff the move followed “challenges in the market” and a review of team needs for the next project. “Several positions across Sucker Punch will be eliminated as a result,” the internal note said, according to the report.
“There’s no getting around that this is a hard day,” the email continued, promising more detail on the studio’s future in the following week and stressing that leaders didn’t make the call lightly.
The cuts landed weeks after Ghost of Yotei’s DLC and Complete Edition arrived on PS5. The base game sold 3.3 million copies in its first month and ranks among the stronger-reviewed PS5 exclusives, which makes the timing feel especially sharp for a team that just shipped a hit.
Sucker Punch hasn’t publicly named the next project. Fans still float Infamous remasters, a new Sly Cooper, or another Ghost entry, but the staffing note only confirms that leadership resized the roster around whatever is actually in preproduction.
A screenshot from Ghost of Yōtei (2025), Sucker Punch
The week around the announcement was already rough across the industry. Electronic Arts moved to shut down BioWare while cutting hundreds of roles company-wide, and France’s Don’t Nod outlined deep job reductions amid safeguard proceedings. Sucker Punch’s 26 exits sit in that same news cycle even though Sony’s studio is a separate corporate story.
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PlayStation’s broader slate has been noisy for other reasons too, from an all-digital future talk aimed at the next hardware generation to the earlier closure of Bluepoint. Those headlines don’t explain Sucker Punch’s spreadsheet, but they set the mood players bring to any Sony studio update.
What Leadership Told Staff
The leaked note is short on project titles and long on market language. Leadership tied the reductions to outside conditions and to the headcount the next game actually needs, which is the same phrasing many studios use when a ship team is larger than the follow-up team.
Support for departing colleagues was part of the message, alongside a promise of a fuller future talk. Until that meeting lands, the public facts are the headcount, the Yotei timing, and the existence of another project on the board.
Ghost of Yotei’s Afterglow
Three million-plus opening-month sales usually buy a studio breathing room. Complete Edition and story DLC were meant to extend that runway. Whether those packs moved the needle enough is unclear from the outside, and IGN notes the PC plan for Yotei was already dropped when Sony pulled back from that path.
A successful exclusive can still face a thinner sequel team if the next pitch is smaller, remaster-focused, or built with more external partners. The email’s “team needs” line leaves room for any of those shapes.
Players who wanted an immediate Ghost follow-up, an Infamous revival, or Sly Cooper’s return will have to wait for the studio’s next public beat. Staffing cuts rarely preview the pitch deck.
A Familiar Industry Week
BioWare’s shutdown and Don’t Nod’s cuts dominated timelines in the same stretch, which is why Sucker Punch’s note traveled beyond PlayStation blogs. One studio’s market-challenges email reads differently when two other respected names are also shedding roles.
None of that changes the local math in Bellevue: 26 people out, a hit still fresh in the charts, and a next game that leadership says required a smaller footprint. That is the story until Sony or Sucker Punch puts a title on a State of Play slide.
Does a post-launch studio cut change how you read a game’s first-year success?
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