Riot’s Layoffs: 500+ Employees Affected. Riot Forge Closed
Riot’s layoffs affect over 500 employees globally. Riot Forge will soon be closed after the release of Bandle Tale.

Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Riot Games initiates a significant restructuring plan, resulting in 530 layoffs globally (11% of the workforce).
- Riot offers laid-off employees a severance package, including six months of pay, performance bonuses, health benefits, job placement services, visa assistance, and more that you can read in Dylan Jadeja’s email to employees.
- Riot Forge will be closed after Bandle Tale’s release.
- Legends of Runeterra’s team will be scaled down.
- Riot aims to tightly integrate esports, music, and entertainment with games, showcasing anticipation for upcoming projects like Project L, Arcane Season 2, and multiple projects in research and development.
To ensure a more sustainable future, Riot Games has recently announced a significant restructuring plan. As stated by Riot CEO Dylan Jadeja in an email to employees, the company will now concentrate more on its core games. They are high-impact projects such as LoL, VALORANT, Teamfight Tactics, and Wild Rift.
The Reason for Riot’s Layoffs
The decision follows Riot’s move towards a multi-game, multi-experience approach. This has led to an excessive workload. And to add, certain ambitious projects initiated since 2019 have fallen short of expectations:
“Some of the significant investments we’ve made aren’t paying off the way we expected them to. Our costs have grown to the point where they’re unsustainable, and we’ve left ourselves with no room for experimentation or failure—which is vital to a creative company like ours. All of this puts the core of our business at risk. “
— Riot CEO Dylan Jadeja
How Riot’s Layoffs Will Affect Its Games
The layoffs at Riot Games impact around 530 employees globally. It’s approximately 11% of the total workforce. Riot will also implement internal adjustments to certain game development projects:
- The development team for the Legends of Runeterra card game, based on League of Legends, will undergo scaling down. The company aims to redirect its efforts towards enhancing the Path of Champions PvE mode instead.
- Riot Forge, a program for making single-player LoL games with external studios, will close after Bandle Tale’s release. Jadeja clarified they’re not ruling out single-player experiences or collaborations with other developers entirely. However, that’s for the future. And it will be different from how things are right now.
Riot’s Layoffs: Employees’ Severance Package

For those impacted by the layoffs, Riot provides a severance package that includes:
- A minimum of six months of severance pay
- Performance-based bonuses
- Health benefits
- Job placement services
- Assistance for visa holders
- And more that you can check out in Jadeja’s message to Rioters.
What Will Happen Next
Going forward, Riot aims to integrate esports, music, and entertainment with its games more tightly. Alongside current titles, they can’t wait until the upcoming projects are ready to present to players. Meanwhile, Project L is making significant strides, with further updates slated for later this year. Arcane Season 2 is set for release in November 2024. There are also multiple projects at various stages of research and development.
What do you think about this whole situation? Let us know in the comments!
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