Reports have emerged that Square Enix is the latest video game company to be hit with layoffs today, with job cuts across “nearly all areas” outside of Japan including roles in sales, marketing, and publishing.

VGC broke the news earlier today and reports that Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu held a video call to staff outside of Japan — including Europe, the UK, and the US — to tell employees that a “fundamental restructuring of the overseas publishing organization” will be taking place.

This will involve staff losing their jobs and those that remain will also be required to be present in the office more often. Employees are being told the news today, and staff have already shared posts on social media announcing their departures.

IGN and Bloomberg have also corroborated this information, with today’s progress report stating that the restructuring “Implementation of structural reforms in overseas publishing organizations to further strengthen global publishing capabilities and improve operational efficiency”.

According to the Progress Report (linked above), the Overseas Structural Reform is expected to save around 3 billion yen, or around USD $19.6 million.

A spokesperson for Square Enix told both Bloomberg and IGN that the decision to make cuts and layoffs was “extremely difficult” though declined to tell the outlet how many jobs this will hit. According to IGN, around 137 jobs are potentially affected in the UK.

The company “extend[s] our heartfelt gratitude” to those affected and that “During this period of transition, we remain committed to treating each individual with the utmost respect and providing extensive support throughout this process.”

This news follows the news that Square Enix hopes to “Automate 70% of QA and debugging tasks in game development by the end of 2027” using generative AI. Today’s layoffs are reportedly unrelated to that announcement, as per Jason Schreier on Bluesky.

But it does come at a time when the video game industry is struggling, and over three years after Square Enix already sold off a number of its international development teams to Embrace Group.

More details are sure to emerge; we wish for all the best for those impacted by today’s layoffs.