That will entail layoffs at Total War studio Creative Assembly, mobile specialist development team Sega HARDlight, and Sega Europe. Currently, the status of other UK-based Sega-owned studios – such as Two Point Studios (Two Point Hospital, Two Point Campus) and Spots Interactive (Football Manager) – is unknown.

“I want to sincerely apologise for the worry and understandable distress this news will cause, particularly for those directly affected,” Sega Europe’s newly-appointed Jurgen Post told staff. “These decisions have been incredibly tough to make, and they follow meticulous consideration and deliberation with leadership teams across the business. Change is necessary to secure the future of our games business, and to ensure that we are well placed to deliver the best possible experiences to our players going forward.

“We need to streamline, focus on what we are good at, and position ourselves as best we can for the road ahead. In order to do that, we need to respond to the changing economic landscape and the challenges we’re facing in the way we develop our products and bring them to market.”

This isn’t the first time Sega has had to resort to layoffs in recent months. Creative Assembly was impacted by job cuts last year when Sega cancelled the studio’s long-in-development multiplayer shooter HYENAS, which reportedly had the largest ever budget for a Sega title. The publisher said in the aftermath that Creative Assembly would go back to focusing on strategy games.

Earlier this month, Sega America also laid off 61 employees (roughly 13 percent of its workforce).

Meanwhile, Sega has also announced that Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment is splitting from the company and going independent.

Ubisoft Forward is out of the way and Microsoft’s first-party showcase for Xbox Series X is this week. But even more events are coming up, including Gamescom 2020. Following the physical event’s cancellation, it will now be fully digital from August 27th to 30th with Gamescom Opening Night Live kicking off the ceremonies.

In a recent press release, organizer Koelnmesse confirmed a number of publishers and developers that will be participating digitally. These include Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Bethesda, Electronic Arts, Koch Media, Sega Europe, Ubisoft and more. So you can likely expect to see EA present the next Need for Speed while Ubisoft showcases Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs: Legion and perhaps even Gods and Monsters.

It’s the likes of Activision Blizzard and Bethesda which are more interesting. With BlizzCon cancelled this year, it wouldn’t be strange if new trailers for Diablo 3 or Overwatch 2 were revealed at Gamescom. As for Bethesda, it does have QuakeCon at Home 2020 coming up on August 7th to 9th so we could see some announcements there first. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

Sega has today confirmed that it will close a number of offices in Europe as a part of its restructuring process. They had mentioned in the past that they will concentrate only on profitable IPs and the digital space to turnaround the company.

Offices in France, Germany, Spain, Australia and Benelux are being shut down, and Koch Media, Level03 Distribution and 5 Star Games will distribute their products in these countries.

“SEGA is entering a new and exciting phase that will position the company as a content led organisation maximising sales with strong and balanced IP such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War, Football Manager and the Aliens franchise,” said Jurgen Post, COO of SEGA Europe.

“The company will benefit from a clear focus and realigned strategy for our digital business and packaged goods and we are confident that this will lead to a successful future.”

The official reason given for this is was due to “a result of the recent restructure it will be shifting business to focus on developing new and existing digital content as well as driving key IP for packaged goods. SEGA has therefore realigned its business strategy and will be closing their offices in France, Germany, Spain, Australia and Benelux.”

This is indeed pretty sad and hopefully this should benefit the company in the long term and make them profitable.

Update: Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson has debunked this rumour.

Sega Europe’s local branches will be closed in the coming months and they will stop making AAA games, reports Gamekyo. Their financial condition isn’t that great, and earlier Sega had revealed in their fiscal year report that they will cut down on spending and concentrate on profitable franchises.

The same thing is mentioned in Gamekyo’s report, where they say that Sega will stop funding big games and concentrate on mobile and tablet games. Sega won’t be there at GamesCom year, and their title Creative Assembly will be shown at E3 this year.

Sega has supposedly cancelled Bayonetta 2 as well but this is still a rumour mind you, so take this with a pinch of salt. We will update the article once we hear more.

We’ve asked Sega for clarification as well but they given the standard: “No. We don’t comment on rumors or speculation.”

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.