Bit Reactor furloughed most of its staff before the release of Star Wars Zero Company, leaving only a skeleton crew on active payroll to handle post-launch bugs. The Maryland studio’s decision landed weeks before Thursday, August 27, when the game went out on Xbox Series and PC.
August 12 and 80%
A filing from August 12 said Bit Reactor had furloughed most of its employees and terminated contractors. One source put the scale at 80% of the team, while another said only a skeleton crew remained to deal with Zero Company after launch. For employees, that means the studio entered release week with far fewer hands on day-to-day support than a normal debut would carry.
Zachariah Scott on LinkedIn
Zachariah Scott, a former Bit Reactor senior technical artist, said on LinkedIn that the studio was “concealing the fact that the team was Furloughed weeks ago.” He also said he spoke to nearly a dozen Bit Reactor workers over the weekend, and the repeated answer he got was, “Everybody has essentially the same story, which is, ‘Yeah, I got furloughed three weeks ago.”
That account puts the layoffs close enough to launch to make them operationally important, not just a staffing note. Bit Reactor said the call was its alone and not EA’s or Disney’s, and a representative said the furlough decision was made before it was clear how launch would go. The studio also said it hoped to bring furloughed workers back with restored pay.
Launch and return
Star Wars Zero Company arrived on Thursday, August 27, after Bit Reactor had already moved most of its staff off payroll. The game’s release did not stop the studio from facing the practical question that now matters most: how many of those furloughed workers will return, and whether restored pay will be enough to bring back the team that built the game in the first place.
