Refactor Games, the US studio behind Netflix's FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition, has laid off roughly 80 people after part-owner Delphi Interactive withdrew its funding — less than two months after the game shipped.

The football sim launched in June as a Netflix Games exclusive. Critics were unimpressed: reviews targeted the controls, the graphics and the player AI. Netflix saw it differently, telling investors on its July earnings call that FIFA and fellow debut Unhinged were "our 2 most successful cloud game debuts, really solid numbers that put it in the top tier of game performance for us" — a line Game Developer had already flagged as striking given the reviews. Delphi's chief executive, Casper Daugaard, told GameFile the game was "doing extremely well"; the outlet reported 1.5 million players in its first week.

Praised, then pulled

Staff learned of the shutdown at a general meeting on Friday, July 31. Anonymous sources told Insider Gaming the decision came without warning: funding ended immediately, no severance was offered, and that day's payday was the final paycheck. Refactor intends to regroup and hopes to rehire some of the people it let go, according to the sources — a plan those laid off say was not mentioned at the meeting itself.

The sequence is familiar. Netflix called the game a top-tier hit on July 16; two weeks later its developer was gone. The company closed Squid Game: Unleashed studio Boss Fight in October 2025, days after hyping that game on an earnings call. Bloomberg reported the FIFA project was delayed several times and carried a budget in the hundreds of millions — a bill that may have looked harder to justify once the tournament it was built around had ended.

Refactor had deeper roots than one tie-in. Staffed by veterans of EA Sports and 2K Sports, the studio shipped Football Simulator into early access on Steam in 2022. The project had already made headlines when the creator of Metal Gear Solid 5's Fox Engine joined the team as CTO.

For Delphi Interactive, the Refactor stake was one piece of a broader portfolio. The publisher-developer is also working with IO Interactive on 007 First Light, and Daugaard leads the company as chief executive. Neither Netflix nor Delphi has publicly explained what the funding withdrawal means for that relationship or for Delphi's other development commitments.

The game stays put

FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition remains on Netflix, including in the UAE, playable through the app and cloud streaming. Neither Netflix nor Delphi has said what happens to it next. A studio closure does not automatically remove a title from the platform, but the outlook for further updates is unclear.

The closures raise operational questions for studios betting on platform-funded exclusives: engagement metrics praised on an earnings call offered no protection for the developer once the publisher's cost calculus changed. With Refactor hoping to rehire laid-off staff and the game's post-launch roadmap unannounced, the next signal to watch is whether Netflix or Delphi publicly addresses the title's future — and whether Refactor secures new funding to survive in any form.