Square Enix Lays Off Staff Mostly In The U.S. And UK – “Total Karen Obliteration”

Asmongold called the layoffs a “total Karen obliteration” and suggested that those fired get jobs involving putting fries into bags.

The company looks to consolidate game development in Japan to make games as they are intended.

Japanese Gamedevs Cleaning Out Woke Activists

More than 100 Square Enix staffers have been let go across the U.S. and UK following the Japanese game developer’s six-month earnings report ending Sept. 30, FY26. Year-on-year net sales were down 15% (about $871 million) while operating income swelled 29% to $177 million.

The Asian company is citing cost reduction, stream-lining operations, and improving efficiency as the reasons for the lay-offs, while Youtubers see it as a purge of leftist activists who post their pronouns in their private social media bios.

“I don’t know what’s going on over at Square completely, but it seems like if you are someone rocking some pronouns in your (social media) bio, you might not have a job there anymore. You might be changing your pronouns to was/were,” Youtuber YellowFlash 2 said in a video on his channel.

The Youtuber speculates further that several translations from Japanese to English have been deliberately changed in a few of the largest RPGs the studio is famous for to suit a more politically left-leaning audience in the West.

Square Enix Looking To Automate 70% Of QA With AI Technologies

According to the earnings report, Square Enix has already started utilizing AI to speed up production. The report says that the company is “initiating joint research with the Matsuo Laboratory at the University of Tokyo, aimed at improving the efficiency of game development processes through AI technologies.”

The goal is for AI to handle 70% of QA and debugging code by the end of 2027. Interestingly, Square Enix, together with 17 manga and anime companies in Japan, recently criticized the use of Sora2, an OpenAI used to generate video-audio systems. These companies believe that Sora2 was reproducing art work they had already produced.

Even though Square Enix outlines its plans in the earnings report, Youtubers and industry insiders have different takes on the layoffs across the U.S. and UK.

Asmongold Quick To Share His Thoughts

Popular accounts on X (formerly Twitter) such as Grummz, Pirat_Nation, and The Reunion started sharing screenshots of Square Enix employees’ LinkedIn profiles, including snippets from their bios, as proof of people who lost their jobs.

Once the news of the layoffs, with pictures of LinkedIn profiles showing former staffers as looking for work, reached Asmongold, Zack Hoyt, he was quick to comment in his own merciless way.

“It looks like it’s a complete Karen apocalypse, total Karen obliteration. We’re talking about a flawless victory. This is beautiful. This is absolutely beautiful,” he commented on X.

During the videoclip he also commented on former staffers’ bios and suggested that they were fired for having fake jobs and should seek employment that involves putting fries into bags.

Gosuprime tweeted: It’s pretty wild that Square went from Final Fantasy 6/7 and Chrono Trigger to hiring mentally ill people to make games that literally nobody wants to play or buy.”

Moving Production Back To Japan

Square Enix has offices in Europe and the U.S. while being a Japanese company. Yusuke Haruguchi, a Localization Project Manager who seems to have been caught up in the layoffs wrote on his LinkedIn bio what many players have been saying for years.

“One of the missions of the localization division is to create a quality game that overseas users will not recognize as a Japanese game. We do not simply translate or dub the audio; we pay close attention to the smallest details, taking into account overseas cultures and trends, and in some cases, we even consult with the development team to change the character appearances and game content.”

This is what the home office in Japan has concluded that they want to get rid of. Turning its very own games into a vision of a world view shared by a minority of people working in the gaming industry overseas is clearly against the company’s own interest.

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