This year has been tough for the gaming world, with many people losing their jobs, and now Netflix has closed its gaming studio in Southern California that was working on a big new game.
The studio, which some called team “Blue,” had folks from famous games like Halo, Overwatch, and God of War. Game File shared the news first about Netflix shutting down this team. Chacko Sonny, who worked on Overwatch, started this group two years back to be part of Netflix’s growing game-making family.
Joseph Staten, known for his work on Halo, joined Netflix in April 2023 to be the creative director at this studio, hoping to make a “brand-new AAA multiplatform game.” Before this, he spent nine years with Microsoft and worked on Halo Infinite and the original Halo games at Bungie.
Fans really hoped to see something amazing from these gaming legends.
Rafael Grassetti, who used to be an art director at Sony Santa Monica, joined Netflix around the same time as Staten. However, with team “Blue” now gone, both Grassetti and Sonny have left Netflix.
Back in July, Netflix mentioned they were working on over 80 games, even though their gaming business isn’t huge. This year, it’s said that more than 10,000 jobs in video games have disappeared, with companies like Ubisoft also cutting down their teams in August. Industry experts, like those at GameSpot, are trying to figure out why all these layoffs are happening.
