Meta Platforms has started another round of job cuts, and the impact is already visible on LinkedIn, where posts marked “Open to Work” from former Meta employees are steadily increasing. The layoffs are centred on the company’s Reality Labs division, which looks after Meta’s virtual reality, augmented reality and metaverse-related products. According to a Bloomberg report, more than 1,000 roles are being affected as Meta reshuffles its priorities and moves resources away from VR and metaverse projects towards AI-powered wearables and phone features.
Employees began receiving layoff notifications from Tuesday morning, as confirmed in an internal post by Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, which was reviewed by Bloomberg. The cuts are expected to impact roughly 10 percent of the Reality Labs workforce. The division has close to 15,000 employees, making this one of the more substantial trims within Meta’s hardware and future-tech teams in recent months.
Meta shuts down multiple VR studios
As part of this restructuring, Meta is also closing three of its in-house VR game and content studios. According to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg, Armature, Sanzaru and Twisted Pixel are being shut down. These studios were responsible for several VR-focused titles and content built for Meta’s Quest platform. Meta will continue to operate five other studios, including Camouflaj, Glassworks, Games, BigBox and OURO, signalling that the company is not exiting VR content entirely but is clearly narrowing its focus.
The decision has had an immediate ripple effect across the gaming and XR developer community. Several employees from Armature and other affected studios have publicly shared updates on LinkedIn, confirming studio closures and their sudden exit from Meta.
LinkedIn flooded with “Open to Work” posts
Soon after the layoffs began, LinkedIn saw a wave of posts from former Meta and Reality Labs employees announcing that they are looking for new opportunities. Many of these posts strike a similar tone, saying gratitude for the experience, disappointment at how things ended, and a hopeful look towards what comes next.
One former Armature employee, game designer Mitchio Porter, shared that after six years at the studio, moving from QA to a game designer role, they are now searching for new opportunities following what they described as an “unfortunate termination.” Porter said they are open to roles across game design, game development and prototyping, and are willing to work in Austin or elsewhere.
Senior character artist Kat Webster also confirmed that Armature Games had shut down. “It was a great ride at Armature games (Meta) but unfortunately the studio was closed down today,” Webster wrote, adding that they are now looking for a new role as a senior character artist.
Another long-time employee, Frank Ward, said he had spent over ten years at Armature Studio before being impacted. With more than 25 years of experience in the video game industry, Ward mentioned that he is now exploring “something new,” while making it clear that building games is still very much what he wants to do next.
The layoffs were not limited to game studios alone. Jake Steinerman, a developer advocate at Meta Reality Labs, also confirmed his departure, calling his time at Meta his “dream job.” Steinerman spoke about working closely with the XR developer community, building advocacy programs and representing Meta at global events. He said he is now looking for roles in developer advocacy, developer relations or community-focused positions, ideally in XR, AR, VR or AI.
Similarly, Jack Chen, a technical lead at Oculus VR, shared that he had been impacted by the layoffs. Chen highlighted his work at the intersection of hardware, platforms and game studios at Meta, and said he is now open to leadership roles in production and technical program management, including remote opportunities.
Experience level did not offer protection
One detail that stands out from these LinkedIn posts is the wide range of experience among those laid off. From employees with just over a year at Meta to veterans with more than eight or even ten years at the company, the cuts do not appear to be limited to any one seniority level. This suggests that the restructuring is driven more by strategic direction and team priorities rather than individual performance or tenure.
Many of those affected have publicly thanked Meta and their teams, despite the abrupt nature of the layoffs. Several posts mention pride in the work done, especially in pushing the boundaries of VR and XR development, even as those projects are now being scaled back.
Why Meta is making these cuts
Meta has been clear that the layoffs are part of a broader restructuring of Reality Labs. The company is shifting its investment focus away from large-scale metaverse bets and towards AI-driven devices, including wearables and smarter phone features.
“We said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from metaverse toward wearables,” a Meta spokesperson told Bloomberg. “This is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the growth of wearables this year.”
Reality Labs has been a major source of losses for Meta over the past few years, even as the company continued to spend heavily on VR headsets, mixed reality hardware and immersive content. For your reference, Meta’s October quarterly earnings showed that Reality Labs posted a loss of $4.4 billion, even as the unit generated $470 million in revenue. The current layoffs suggest that Meta is now taking a more cautious approach, choosing to streamline teams and shut down studios that no longer align closely with its near-term priorities.
