Bandai Namco Reportedly Hit With Layoffs

Bandai Namco, the Japanese media giant behind titles like Tekken and Elden Ring, has reportedly let go of over 100 employees over the past year. Layoffs have plagued the gaming industry in recent years, hitting both indie studios and large corporations alike. While Bandai Namco has not officially stated that it’s faced the same fate, it seems many staff members have left the company one way or another.

Despite Bandai Namco’s strong lineup of upcoming releases in 2025, the last year has been challenging for the company. Several high-profile projects never made it out of development, and others failed to perform to the studio’s expectations. As has been the case with many other developers and publishers lately, these headwinds have seemingly impacted staffing levels, even though Bandai claims otherwise.

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Automaton reports that Japan’s Pension Service database, which details the number of insured employees under each business, shows Bandai Namco has decreased its workforce by 117 employees between April 2024 and February 2025. While there’s no official news of layoffs, the company is undergoing some organizational shake-ups. In November 2024, Bandai Namco announced it was merging its two main gaming subsidiaries in April 2025. It’s unclear if this merger will entail some staffing reductions, or if it already has, but big changes are coming to the business regardless.

Bandai Namco’s Employment Drops After Rumors of Coerced Resignation

The reported employee exodus comes after earlier reports that Bandai Namco encouraged workers to resign through a practice called “oidashi beya.” This involves moving workers to “expulsion rooms” where they receive little to no work, coercing them to resign voluntarily without needing to fire anyone. When those rumors first emerged, the company denied it was following the controversial practice, saying that some employees were simply waiting for future projects to come down the pipeline. Still, reports claimed that nearly 100 workers had resigned because of the practice, which is in line with the recent numbers from the Pension Service database. If Bandai Namco is coercing resignation, it would also explain why so many workers have left despite there being no official layoffs.

Without any details from staff or the company itself, any news on why Bandai Namco’s workforce has shrunk is speculation at this point. Still, rumors of layoffs or oidashi beya are understandable given the current state of the industry. As recently as January, Ubisoft closed one of its studios while reducing staff at three others, and BioWare, WB Games, and Rocksteady have all cut their workforce within the past year, too. Given the difficulties Bandai Namco faced in 2024, staff cuts would make sense, even if they may be controversial.

Bandai Namco Entertainment

Date Founded

March 31, 2006

Headquarters

Tokyo, Japan

Parent Company

Namco Bandai