Firaxis Lays Off Employees, Despite Publisher Claiming Civilization 7 Sales Are ‘Consistent With Expectations’

Civilization VII developer Firaxis has laid off an unknown number of individuals today, despite the insistance of Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick that the game’s sales are consistent with expectations.

Today, a number of Firaxis employees announced across social media that they had been let go, including members of production, narrative, and art. Civilization VII publisher 2K confirmed the layoffs to Game Developer, saying the studio was restructuring and optimizing its development process for “adaptability, collaboration, and creativity.” The company did not confirm the number of individuals impacted.

Firaxis released Civilization VII earlier this year, and the game has since received a mixed reception on Steam amid player complaints about the game’s user interface, lack of map variety, and that it was missing expected features. Since then, Firaxis has released a number of updates to the game to improve it in these areas.

In the meantime, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of 2K parent Take-Two, has said that while Civilization VII did get off to a “slow start”, the company’s internal projections for the “lifetime value” of the game still match initial expectations.

“I think the key thing is that Civ has always been a slow burn. It’s always been a title that had — I’m not really a big believer in the long tail theory of the entertainment business — but Civ is an example of that theory. And right now our projections for the lifetime value of the title are very consistent with our initial expectations for the title.

“So while we were off to a slow start and while we have had to make changes — and there are more changes coming — I feel like consumer uptake is better and better and we feel really good about the title. I think over time it’s going to take its place in its civilization pantheon in a very successful, credible way.”

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.