Hungarian Zen Studios is facing a huge downsizing wave

The name of the Hungarian Zen Studios may be familiar to many primarily because of their exceptionally good pinball games, but we should also not forget that we owe them, for example, the old-school, turn-based role-playing game that provides a very special experience, Opera: The Stolen Sun even in 2019, or just last year Circus Electriquewhich turned out to be an interesting mix of genres.

Back in November 2020, we reported that THQ Nordic’s parent company, the Embracer Group included 13 studios, including one Hungarian one. And this Hungarian team was Zen Studios, so it seemed certain that the chariot of the guard will continue to push in the right direction, after all, there is already a sufficiently massive background behind them. Well, now it looks like the story has taken a different turn.

THE Forbes.hu because yesterday, referring to internal sources who asked to remain anonymous, he wrote that a brutal downsizing took place at Zen Studios, the Hungarian team practically let go of about a quarter of its full-time employees. Zen Studios, which employs 121 people, has now fired 36 employees in a less than 10-minute Zoom conference call on Friday, where management cited economic reasons and internal restructuring, according to Forbes. Among those who were fired was someone who was divorced after 15 years of employment.

We have known for some time that the parent company, that is, the Embracer Group, is going through a rather rough crisis (literally in May almost half of the company’s value went up in smokethe price of its shares fell by 40 percent in a short time, as it failed at the last moment, specifically before the signing of a 2 billion dollar deal), they are forced to reach out to the top teams as well, for example already the Tomb Raider developers were also affected by the downsizing wave. Although this has not yet been officially confirmed, it is quite likely that Embracer’s problems spread all the way to Hungarian Zen Studios.