2K confirms layoffs at 31st Union as Project Ethos is reshaped

2K cut staff at 31st Union, and for players watching Project Ethos, the bigger signal is not just the layoffs but the kind of game 2K now appears to be building. The publisher confirmed the reductions at the studio behind the free-to-play shooter, but did not say how many people were affected, leaving the project’s next phase tied to a smaller team and a harder push for speed.

Ben Brinkman, who took over as 31st Union studio head in October 2025 after running production on Apex Legends at Respawn Entertainment, told staff in an internal memo that Project Ethos had a renewed direction and vision but needed to be built more quickly and nimbly. He said the studio had to scale back to match the project’s current phase of development, a clear sign that 2K wanted the game’s staffing aligned with where the work stood now rather than where the publisher once hoped it would be.

That matters because Project Ethos has already been through enough turbulence to make players wary. 31st Union, which started in February 2019 as 2K Silicon Valley and was renamed in February 2020, had already laid off a small number of employees in January 2024. In February 2025, 2K also fired founding studio head Michael Condrey after the game’s reveal drew a weak response. When Brinkman was brought in, 2K President David Ismailer cast the move as part of a renewed push to steer Project Ethos back on track.

Project Ethos was first announced in October 2024 as a free-to-play, third-person roguelike hero shooter and extraction shooter, and 2K’s official site still describes it as a free-to-play, 3rd-person roguelike hero shooter in development. The studio’s public materials list locations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Valencia, Spain, reinforcing that 31st Union remains a transatlantic operation even as its headcount shrinks.

2K says Project Ethos is still in development, so this is a restructuring rather than a cancellation. That distinction matters for anyone deciding whether to invest time in a live-service shooter that has not yet fully settled on its identity. When a publisher trims a team, it can mean slower content, tighter support plans, and a longer road to launch, but it can also mean the project is being pared back just enough to survive. For Project Ethos, 2K is clearly choosing the second path for now.