EA announces layoffs in Los Angeles, Montreal

Electronic Arts announced layoffs in its Los Angeles and Montreal studios today, along with "some smaller locations." In a statement, EA president of labels Frank Gibeau noted that the company is in the midst of transitioning to new consoles, and said sometimes "it is not possible to redeploy a team."

The statement (via Polygon) says that thousands of employees have been repositioned to work on new platforms. "But when it is not possible to redeploy a team, we soften the tough decisions with assistance," he said. "This week we let some people go in Los Angeles, Montreal as well as in some smaller locations. These are good people and we have offered outplacement services and severance packages to ease their transition to a new job."

The Montreal studio was most recently on Army of Two: Devil's Cartel, which is set to release on March 26. Rumors circulated on Twitter that EA Montreal and Visceral Montreal were shutting down entirely. EA issued a statement to Polygon, dismisses the EA Montreal rumors but doesn't mention Visceral: "EA Montreal is a key development studio where our long-term plan is to sharpen our teams' focus on console and mobile games."