# EA Cut 400, Only 50 at BioWare. Search 'Frostbite' in Canada, Not the US

_EA cut about 400 jobs on Oct 21 and only 50 were at BioWare. Here is how to find the other 350 through Frostbite, skate. and studio-city searches._

- Canonical URL: https://www.refolk.ai/blog/ea-layoffs-october-2026-frostbite-sourcing
- Published: 2026-11-02
- Reading time: 9 min
- Keywords: EA layoffs October 2026, BioWare layoffs hire engineers, hire laid off game developers, Frostbite engine engineers, Full Circle skate layoffs

On October 21, 2026, EA said it would cut about 400 jobs and close BioWare, and most of the coverage stopped at BioWare. Only about 50 of those roles were there. The other 350 or so were spread across Maxis, Full Circle, Motive, Respawn and Ripple Effect, and EA hasn't said how many came from each. If you hire engine, graphics or live-service engineers, those 350 people are your actual market.

## The real pool is 350 people, not 50

About 350 of the roughly 400 people cut in the EA layoffs of October 2026 worked outside BioWare. That's 87.5% of the total. Size your search against that number, because the BioWare 50 are about to become the most-contacted people in games.

Here's what has been confirmed. Bloomberg reported that EA emailed staff about laying off around 400 people, about 50 of them at BioWare. Cam Weber (president and chief studios officer) and David Tinson (president and COO) signed the memo. The cut is about 3% of a company of roughly 14,500, and it comes less than three months after EA went private on August 4.

> **87.5%** Share of EA's October 21 cuts that landed outside BioWare
>
> Derived from the reported 400 total and roughly 50 at BioWare. EA has published no studio-by-studio breakdown.

That share should change how you search. Anyone looking up "BioWare layoffs hire engineers" this week gets the same short list of names. The people who will get fewer messages are the 350 who have no headline attached to them.

## Who was cut outside BioWare

The only map of the non-BioWare cuts comes from employees' own LinkedIn posts, which Chris Kerr at Vertical Slice pulled together. Those posts put layoffs at five more studios, and Full Circle took the biggest hit by percentage.

| Studio | What's public | Named people who posted |
|---|---|---|
| Full Circle (skate.) | ~30 to 40% of a 100+ team | David Milne, senior designer |
| Maxis (Redwood City) | Layoffs posted on LinkedIn | Anna Huerta, senior director |
| Motive | Cuts while Iron Man continues | Jamieson Shearer, senior gameplay designer |
| Respawn | Cuts while Apex and a DICE project continue | Randall Wong (UX PM), Catheryn Grant (operations PM) |
| Ripple Effect | Three artists and an operations PM posted | Not widely named |

### Full Circle skate layoffs are the biggest single block

Several sources told Vertical Slice that Full Circle lost about 30 to 40% of a team of more than 100. That works out to roughly 30 to 40+ people, or about 9 to 11% of the 350, all from one studio working on one live-service game. One laid-off employee said the process was secretive enough that some colleagues only said goodbye after they saw her LinkedIn post.

That secrecy matters for sourcing. If coworkers on the same team couldn't tell who had been cut, a recruiter scanning EA profiles from outside can't either. The headcount is real, but most of it isn't visible on LinkedIn.

> If you only search the studio that made the headline, you are sourcing from the 12.5% everyone else is already calling.

### Studios EA publicly backed still lost people

The memo backed Respawn and Motive in public. Respawn will work with DICE on a future game, reportedly a new Star Wars: Battlefront, and Apex Legends continues. Motive keeps Marvel's Iron Man. Both studios still had cuts, and the people who posted held operations, UX and design roles.

The likely explanation is that the cuts targeted support and live-ops functions inside studios whose flagship projects survived. So don't decide which studios to search by which ones got good news in the memo. Filter by role.

> **Engineering roles open in Los Angeles** - [see the open roles](https://www.refolk.ai/jobs/search?family=engineering&location=los-angeles)
>
> Same metro as Respawn and Ripple Effect, where several of the October 21 cuts landed.

## Why "Frostbite" works as a search term in Canada but not the US

A headline search for "Frostbite" in Canada returns real Frostbite and EA staff 72% of the time. In the US, 80% of the results are unrelated businesses. The keyword is identical in both countries and gives you opposite results.

This is the core dataset, pulled from Refolk's index of professional profiles in November 2026:

| Query | Total profiles | Signal in a 25-profile sample |
|---|---|---|
| "Frostbite" in headline, Canada | 80 | 18/25 (72%) at Frostbite, EA or Full Circle |
| "Frostbite" in headline, United States | 231 | 5/25 (20%) at Frostbite, the rest noise |
| "Frostbite" as a listed skill, global | 284 | Embark 4, EA 3, Globant 2, plus Epic, Riot, Halo Studios, Google, Mojang |

The cause is geography combined with vocabulary. Frostbite people cluster in Vancouver, Burnaby and Greater Vancouver. Canadian profiles include titles like "VP of Engineering Frostbite" and "Head of Development & Operations, Frostbite." In the Canadian sample, Frostbite itself is the top current employer (11 of 25), then EA (6), then Full Circle (1). In the US, "frostbite" is also an ordinary English word, so the sample was full of businesses like FrostBite Records and Frostbite Snow Cones.

The US query returns about 2.9x as many profiles as the Canadian one, and most of them are false positives. If you want Frostbite engine engineers south of the border, add an employer filter (EA, Respawn, Maxis, Ripple Effect), a city or a technical skill. Never run the bare keyword.

## Headline search finds current staff; skill tags find proven movers

A headline search surfaces people who work on Frostbite now, which is the group this round could have hit. A skill-tag search surfaces people who used to work on it, and shows you where engine engineers go after they leave EA.

The 284 profiles with Frostbite as a skill tell a different story from the headline results. The top current employer is Embark Studios in Stockholm, ahead of EA. Other alumni now work at Epic, Riot, Halo Studios, Google, Mojang and even lululemon. The skill-tag group clusters in Vancouver, Stockholm and Madrid.

Use each search for a different job:

- **Headline search** when you want people affected this month. It is current, local and mostly Canadian.
- **Skill-tag search** when you need proof that engine skills transfer. A Frostbite engineer now at Google is the best evidence you can give a non-games hiring manager.
- **Both, deduplicated** when you're building a long-term watchlist, since a later round of cuts will turn some current staff into job seekers.

Running two queries, removing the noise, and matching each person's LinkedIn profile to their GitHub is the tedious part. [Refolk](/) handles it: you describe the engineer in plain English and get back a ranked shortlist drawn from GitHub, LinkedIn and the open web, without the snow-cone shops.

> **Example search:** "Find C++ engine and rendering engineers in Vancouver or Burnaby who list Frostbite and worked at EA or Full Circle within the last year." - [run it on Refolk](https://www.refolk.ai/start?q=Find%20C%2B%2B%20engine%20and%20rendering%20engineers%20in%20Vancouver%20or%20Burnaby%20who%20list%20Frostbite%20and%20worked%20at%20EA%20or%20Full%20Circle%20within%20the%20last%20year.)
>
> A ranked shortlist with linked GitHub, LinkedIn and web profiles, filtered to people whose headline or skills point to real Frostbite engine work.

## The engineers didn't post. Find them by engine and city

Most of the public LinkedIn posts came from designers, artists and project managers. The engineers recruiters want mostly said nothing, so you have to find them through engine skills and studio cities, not through announcements.

Look at who posted: a senior director at Maxis, a gameplay designer at Motive, a senior designer at Full Circle, artists at Ripple Effect, PMs at Respawn. That reflects who is comfortable posting publicly. It doesn't tell you how the cuts were distributed. The engineers on the skate. live-service backend and on Frostbite itself are much harder to spot.

Search these cities:

- **Vancouver and Burnaby:** Frostbite engine team, Full Circle (skate.)
- **Montreal:** Motive
- **Redwood City:** Maxis
- **Los Angeles:** Respawn, Ripple Effect

Then add technical signals to the location:

- Frostbite in the headline or skills
- Live-service backend work tied to skate. or Apex Legends
- A current or recent employer in the EA family: EA, Frostbite, Full Circle, Maxis, Motive, Respawn or Ripple Effect
- An EA tenure that ended in October or November 2026

Doing this by hand means writing a boolean string for each city, checking EA tenure profile by profile, and guessing who was affected when nobody announced it. It is slow, and other studios and non-game employers are running the same searches.

## Why more EA cuts are coming

The math says this is the first round. EA went private in a $55B buyout carrying $18B in debt and told debt investors it plans about $700M in annual savings. Cutting 400 people, about 3% of staff, doesn't come close.

The deal closed August 4, 2026, led by Saudi Arabia's PIF with Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. It is described as the largest debt-financed buyout on record. Reports already expect more cuts over the next 12 to 18 months.

> **$700M** Annual cost savings EA told debt investors it plans to find
>
> Set against $18B in buyout debt, which a 3% headcount cut does not cover on its own.

This matches the industry pattern. InformationWeek describes EA's cut as a restructuring of its studio division, and in the GDC 2026 State of the Industry survey of more than 2,300 developers, restructuring was the most-cited reason for layoffs (43%), ahead of budget cuts (38%). The same survey found that 28% of developers worldwide and 33% in the US had been laid off in the past two years, and 48% of those were still looking for work. Defense, simulation and other non-game employers hire for the same real-time rendering and systems-programming skills, so if you hire outside games, lead your pitch with the problem the engineer would be solving, not with the industry.

The memo also tells you what EA plans to keep: Apex Legends, the Respawn and DICE project, Iron Man, the next Star Wars Jedi game, EA Sports' "Project Gridiron" and a Fight Night revival. Teams that support projects outside that list are the ones to watch. October showed that even protected studios lose their support and live-ops staff.

## A watchlist you can build this week

Build the search once, save it, and re-run it every month for the next 12 to 18 months. Here's the order:

1. **Start in Canada.** Run "Frostbite" as a headline search and use the 80 profiles as your base list.
2. **Clean the US results.** Add an EA-family employer or a technical skill before using any of the 231 US headline matches.
3. **Pull the movers.** Run the global skill-tag search (284 profiles) to find alumni at Embark, Epic, Riot and Google who can serve as references, or as candidates.
4. **Layer in cities.** Search Burnaby, Vancouver, Montreal, Redwood City and Los Angeles for engineers whose EA tenure ended this fall.
5. **Use the posters as connectors.** The designers and PMs who posted publicly worked next to the engineers who didn't. Ask them for warm intros.
6. **Re-run monthly.** Each new round turns more current staff into candidates, and the same query will catch them.

## FAQ

### How many people did EA lay off in October 2026?

EA said on October 21, 2026 that it would cut about 400 jobs, roughly 3% of a workforce of around 14,500, and close BioWare. About 50 of those roles were at BioWare. The other roughly 350 were at other studios, and EA has not published a breakdown by studio.

### Which EA studios had layoffs besides BioWare?

Employees at Maxis (Redwood City), Full Circle, Motive, Respawn and Ripple Effect posted layoffs on LinkedIn, according to Vertical Slice. Full Circle, the skate. team, was hit hardest by percentage, losing an estimated 30 to 40% of a team of more than 100. Respawn and Motive lost staff even though EA publicly backed their projects.

### How do I find Frostbite engine engineers affected by the cuts?

Search "Frostbite" in profile headlines in Canada, where 72% of a sample in Refolk's index were real Frostbite, EA or Full Circle staff. In the US, always add an employer, city or technical skill, because 80% of unfiltered results were unrelated businesses. Then add the studio cities and filter for EA tenure that ended this fall.

### Will EA make more layoffs?

Probably. EA carries $18B in debt from its $55B buyout and told investors it plans about $700M in annual savings, which a 400-person cut doesn't reach. Reports point to more cuts over the next 12 to 18 months, so set up a watchlist for Frostbite, Burnaby, Montreal and Los Angeles now.

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_From the Refolk blog. More posts: https://www.refolk.ai/blog/index.md_