Charming Holiday is a news article writer from the United States who has been working with GameRant since August 2023 and self-publishing since May 2025. He is a former cultural policy advisor who has turned his focus to his lifelong passion of gaming. He lived and worked in South Korea from early 2016 to mid-2019 but has since returned to the greater Chicago area. His first console was the original PlayStation, though he now focuses on the Nintendo Switch and its growing library of first party and indie games. Charming is particularly fond of mystery point-and-click games and action adventure platformers (2D and 3D). Charming hopes to expand his talents into the gaming news industry with the ultimate goal of one day getting to write for and ship a game.
Video game developer Bit Reactor, the studio behind the critically acclaimed Star Wars Zero Company, has been hit with layoffs, despite the highly-praised Star Wars title selling over one million copies and audiences praising the game as one of the best franchise releases in recent memory. Bit Reactor collaborated with Respawn Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games to bring Star Wars Zero Company to life, and even though the launch quickly climbed to the top of many reviewers’ lists, now-former Bit Reactor employees have started sharing news of being officially let go.
Roughly 80% of Bit Reactor developers were furloughed just weeks before the release of Star Wars Zero Company on August 27, with the studio claiming that the unpaid employment status of the affected workers was a result of pushing for financial stability in the lead up to Zero Company‘s launch. However, some employees are now stating that they were more recently let go, leaving fans once again concerned about the state of the video game industry.
Star Wars Zero Company Developers Laid-off Despite Positive Reviews
As first reported by Bespin Bullet, an unspecified number of Bit Reactor employees who worked on Star Wars Zero Company were laid off on Friday, November 6, following an extended period of furlough for a majority of the studio’s staff. It is presently unknown just how many of the terminated staff were originally included in the furlough, though at least one such employee has shared his situation via a post on LinkedIn. There is also uncertainty around whether any of the staff made redundant had been reinstated prior to the layoffs taking effect. Even with positive reviews for Star Wars Zero Company from both critics and audiences, it seems the rising costs of game development, and subsequently the soaring number of units needed to sell to turn a notable profit, have once again proven an insurmountable hurdle for Bit Reactor.
At the time of writing, neither Bit Reactor nor parent company EA have issued an official statement on the layoffs.
- Released
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August 27, 2026
- Developer(s)
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Bit Reactor
- PC Release Date
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August 27, 2026
