Amid layoffs at EA, with the closure of Mass Effect and Dragon Age studio BioWare announced only last week, it's far from surprising to hear that morale at the publisher is reportedly "terrible."

That's according to anonymous sources speaking to Vertical Slice, who say the layoff process at the publisher is "wildly disruptive" and emotionally "weird" due to an apparent "secrecy" around it that sometimes leaves employees unaware who's been affected until after their co-workers' public LinkedIn posts.

The layoff process itself has also been described as "very impersonal," with multiple affected employees apparently invited to Zoom meetings with the chat disabled and other participants hidden, leaving them unable to ask questions or communicate with their co-workers.

Needless to say, it's understandable that the vibe internally is apparently very poor right now. "Morale has been terrible," one anonymous source says. "The line we kept hearing is 'do less, better' but it just felt like we were doing the same amount with less people. Upper management was very excited about Claude and the possibilities of [generative] AI, much to the chagrin of my team."

Execs at the publisher have been described as out-of-touch with both game development and their employees, and – speaking of AI – that's apparently being pushed, too, with managers apparently telling their employees that "'this is the future, you have to get onboard.'" Even if AI tools aren't currently being mandated, one source alleges that "they'll make it impossible or very difficult for you to do your job without [them]."

Of course, this latest wave of layoffs follows EA going private. The $55 billion acquisition by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, and Silver Lake closed back in August, but as soon as plans were announced last year, EA employees expressed concerns about potential layoffs. EA took on $20 billion in debt as part of the deal, and shortly after the acquisition closed, the publisher reportedly told investors that it planned to cut a whopping $700 million in annual costs, of which $170 million was set to be "organizational efficiencies," which didn't bode well.

Even though things had been looking bad for some time, though, that doesn't make the reality any less upsetting or disappointing.

One anonymous source notes that the email sent out to employees about the organizational changes sounded like it was "written by a robot," which they say "best sums up EA." They continue: "A cold dead place that's slowly decaying as leadership pilfers every last cent, leaving the rest of us to worry about how we feed our families."

"EA never actually sells anything," former Mass Effect 5 dev says – so don't expect the RPG to be saved as "they just shut things down and sit on their licenses."

Most Overwatch fans will know its origins by now: as the recycled product made from the scraps of Project Titan, an MMO that was abruptly cancelled by Blizzard after seven years in development. After this, the team was just given six weeks to come up with a new pitch, something that could rival the revenue brought in by Warcraft; that doesn't sound stressful at all.

But if there were a silver lining to this ridiculous crunch, it would be that it instilled resilience and humility into Team 4 from the start of Overwatch's life, according to Keller. This is something that has undoubtedly seen the team through a decade of Overwatch which has included some particularly rough patches, especially around Overwatch 2's inception.

Hard work and staying true to what made Overwatch so great to begin with was key to Team 4 getting the live-service game back on track over the last few years. And now, 10 years later, the team can be proud of the fact that Overwatch is in its best shape ever.

It also means that the team rarely gets too caught up in what the future holds. "It's really hard to predict 'Hey, 10 years out in the future, we'll still be working on this thing that we all enjoy and love today'," Keller adds. "But we're here now… We have big hopes and dreams of what Overwatch can be, and so even though I can't predict the future, I can't wait to see what Overwatch is like 10 years from now."