Relic is in trouble - 121 employees fired

Just look at WC3, absolutely the same. And one guy there (wc3champions) managed to make his own ladder with matchmaking and ranks system, add and balance maps, add custom modes into matchmaking, etc. While whole Blizzard delivered nothing but downgrades. Fucking shitshow.

This is the real problem at Relic. I have said for so many years now, someone at Relic management sucks beyond belief. But they are nice, so everyone follows them off the cliff like lemmings.

Everything Relic does takes 20 times longer than it should. It has been this way at every dealing I have ever had with them. And their decision making is always flawed.

When asked recently, Gabby even stated something along the lines of "its not that easy to implement these things". So simple stuff like 2D icons on the screen have to go thru several departments and meetings. Where most players know for a fact, it should take one person a day to make 40 of them. This brings development to a crawl.

From everything I have ever read, the work atmosphere at Relic is very good. The longer a project takes, the longer you are employed. Everyone is nice and your having fun. So workers just go with the flow and enjoy making a cool game. Then management says "We are releasing it now".

To quote Enders Game: "You're never ready, you go when your ready enough".

Management at Relic needs to go. This has been brutally obvious to me for several years now. If they have not been able to see it, they need to be let go. They are not fit to manage.

As fans we need to take the "Game is in prerelease stage" until its actually ready and support the Relicans.

Sadly the rest of the new players are already gone and no amount of copium will bring them back. Which means no new money. Which means layoffs.

To quote Shrek: "Some of you may die. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make." - Relic management

I've seen layoffs like that first hand, 20% of company was let go(the publisher I worked at), they fucked suddenly 100 people while boasting about great financial situation just weeks earlier.

Most of the people who were let go found much better jobs relatively fast, publisher itself also changed direction a bit and are doing ok now. Tho people who remained had massive workloads for quite some time.

Shortly after I've decided to look for greener pastures, because it wasn't 1st layoff and I wasn't going to wait and find if they are going to go for 3rd one or not, they have proven to be irresponsible at top level.

Just to add to this:
Unless Relic heavily restructures to more efficient systems, either work will be cut and features not implemented, or the remaining employees overloaded (which is against Relic's pretty good job atmosphere and worker care from what I have heard). With the first option, CoH3 will take even longer to become better. The second option however risks that the people leaving will pull more employees with them if they land a decent new job. Morale at Relic will be super low at the moment, so we can't expect much output from this company in the next weeks, even if the magic turn around should be happening at some point.

COH FRANCHISE is FUBAR

EagleHeart and Trialbob

I didnt know Relic had 300+ employees. This is so clearly overbloated, must have been a result of the AOE4 cooperation and its inherent promises.

Reading through the message from Justin Dowdeswell (Relic GM) - everything is to blame but his management. But he is running the show for 10y.

Of course not a good development. But this should relieve their EBITDA significantly, decreasing insovency risk, and could lead to a lean and focused organisation, as they have to scrap all unnecessary projects. Normally you focus on your core IPs - in this case COH and AoE.

Shaky times. Lets see what the next weeks will bring. I will still be positive about Relic as they are one of the very few studios who at least apporach RTS genre in a relevant way.

I can't help but wonder how much more polished the game could have been at launch if they would of just dropped the half-arsed, bad singleplayer campaigns and focused exclusively on multiplayer/skirmish content. I know campaigns are supposed to be a staple of RTS's in general but Relic haven't really produced anything good in that regard since the first game...

This doesn't sound great. For a completely new game, updates have been coming at a pretty glacial pace already. Guess we'll just have to wait to find out exactly what they'll be prioritising, moving forward.

But kicking out 121 people is not kicking out the management.

Actually looks like the management got hit as well. Both top 2 managers got fired it seems


RIP audio and animator team?



Credits do NOT go to me, someone on the coh3 discord made this through information via LinkedIn and Twitter primarily. Red means people who got fired yesterday, the other colours are people who left earlier, sometimes many months ago

Remember that this is not official and therefore could be wrong & inaccurate

I can't help but wonder how much more polished the game could have been at launch if they would of just dropped the half-arsed, bad singleplayer campaigns and focused exclusively on multiplayer/skirmish content. I know campaigns are supposed to be a staple of RTS's in general but Relic haven't really produced anything good in that regard since the first game...

This doesn't sound great. For a completely new game, updates have been coming at a pretty glacial pace already. Guess we'll just have to wait to find out exactly what they'll be prioritising, moving forward.

There were multiple beta tests, feedback was there, problems were visible months ahead of launch.

You heard them, they thought they did a great job. And clearly it is the managers and upper-positions who patted themselves on the back for their decisions, unless everybody is delusional in there. No amount of time or polish would change their minds that the project wasn't going to the right direction, and their priorities are wrong, and the feedback from beta tests has to be taken onboard rather than fucking with some hue slider.

But even in those videos where 3 dudes are staring at the camera: there is no hype, no pride, uncomfortable. Last one was approaching the hostage video: words say one thing, body language says the opposite. Dodge all the relevant community questions, bombard them back with "we hear ya", "share your feedback".

David Litman was the face of coh3. I remember he said he wanted to do a 1-3/4 or something with coh3, 3 quarters of the game being familiar and 1 quarter being new. He do need to be accountable for coh3 poor plannng

I wonder if Sega will step in and send a more experienced team to hold the fort. Who are the ones made the firing decisions?

Show Spoiler

Good to see some heads rolling and not just the actual working force. Got nothing but disgust for em.

This gave me a little chuckle, this is not how game development teams are structured.

Anyway, it is unfortunate to see people lose their jobs. And like I said in my other post, making video games is very difficult (despite what people believe), many games have rough launches, and plenty that never make it to the public and this can be for many reasons, sadly a minority of the public tends to lean into bassless/uneducated assumptions and stupid conspiracy theory.

Like I understand that you probably can't reveal much about game development due to NDAs etc.

However, the "only if you knew attitude" is infuriating and doesn't add anything to the conversation.

People will jump to conclusions based on the information publicly at hand.

Actually looks like the management got hit as well. Both top 2 managers got fired it seems


RIP audio and animator team?



Credits do NOT go to me, someone on the coh3 discord made this through information via LinkedIn and Twitter primarily. Red means people who got fired yesterday, the other colours are people who left earlier, sometimes many months ago

Thank you for sharing, aerafield!

Thank you for sharing, aerafield!

you're welcome, but keep in mind that this is not official and could therefore be wrong & inaccurate

MonolithicBacon is laid off too?

MonolithicBacon is laid off too?

source? His name is not crossed out on the design team screenshot

Actually looks like the management got hit as well. Both top 2 managers got fired it seems


RIP audio and animator team?



Credits do NOT go to me, someone on the coh3 discord made this through information via LinkedIn and Twitter primarily. Red means people who got fired yesterday, the other colours are people who left earlier, sometimes many months ago

Remember that this is not official and therefore could be wrong & inaccurate

Thanks for the info. Good to see they are at least trying to downsize proportionately.
Slightly weird though that the audio team is gone, they actually still had quite some work to do. Maybe they'll get new ones.
Also good to see that the heads of production are gone. Littman and Mele have severely misplanned CoH3 and lying directly to our faces a lot of times. Let's see if Relic and/or CoH3 survive this release. I hope yes (at least CoH3), but my guess is on no.

Moving forward with Coh3 will only need a few good people. Lets hope the road blocks were removed in this layoff sweep.

From the Discord it looks like Marcus, DevM, and Mono are still working. And Tarnation is alive on Aerafields list. That is all I wanted to know.

I will go back to my hole now. Good luck all.

Nothing healthy about Relic's turnover. It is a downsizing, and the unplanned one with 30 min notices to the 30% of your total workforce.

Turnover is healthy when studios maintain the same workforce, and have open vacancies (hasn't been the case with Relic for months now, or just 1 specialized request). Some retire, some choose other employers, build their own companies, some get fired for poor performance. Ideally leaving employees stick around those extra 2-4 weeks to train their replacements, ensuring smooth transitions and it is all on friendly terms.

The puzzle is, what are there 4 community managers. Wouldn't surprised if John is the only one doing work, while 3 others are "monitoring feedback" aka slacking all day long.

The puzzle is, what are there 4 community managers. Wouldn't surprised if John is the only one doing work, while 3 others are "monitoring feedback" aka slacking all day long.

John and Gabby are on the Coh3 Discord all day long. My guess is the other 2 people are for AoE4?