Crystal Dynamics, the developer of the Tomb Raider trilogy, announced that it has laid off nearly 30 developers as part of the company's current restructuring plan.This is the company's third layoff this year.Crystal Dynamics called the decision "difficult but necessary."The company also said the move was to optimize the development process for the next big Tomb Raider game currently in development.

“Today, we made the difficult but necessary decision to reorganize the studio and team at Crystal Dynamics. As a result, in order to reorganize the company and business for the next generation, we had to part ways with nearly 30 team members across various departments and projects.

Crystal sincerely thanks everyone affected for their exceptional talent, hard work and dedication that has helped the studio thrive in so many ways.We are committed to doing everything we can to provide you with resources and support during this transition period.

To Our Players - As industry realities continue to change, we have made these painful choices in order to optimize the continued development of our flagship game, Tomb Raider, and to align other parts of the studio to prepare for the development of new games in the future."

It always feels paradoxical for a studio to lay off employees in order to "optimize" the development process, because fewer people mean that the remaining employees have to do more work with fewer resources.