Apex Legends Season 16: Revelry is all about celebrating the game’s fourth year. Sadly, playtesters at EA’s Baton Rouge office are unlikely to join the festivities after more than 200 of them were fired earlier today, according to a report from Kotaku. According to the publication’s sources, the announcement came via a “surprise Zoom call,” during which hundreds of Apex Legends testers were unceremoniously dropped by the AAA game publisher.
Described as “unscheduled and mandatory”, it’s clear that the Zoom call came as a shock to both the testers themselves and the company’s top-level supervisors – the latter of whom reportedly received no notice or time to prepare ahead of the layoffs in Tuesday mass. Adding insult to injury, Kotaku’s sources claim that after the surprise Zoom meeting, employees who were fired were only allowed to clear their desks and collect personal belongings under the direct supervision of EA’s security personnel. EA is offering 60 days of severance, though that’s far less time than most employees still had in their employment contracts.