Treyarch’s former Senior lead writer, Craig Houston, has been laid off after approximately 20 years of service with the developer. In a post made to both his Twitter/X account and LinkedIn, the developer thanked fans for their support during his two decades with the company and confirmed he was impacted by recent reorganistation within the studio.
“After approximately 20 years, I was sadly one of those affected by recent layoffs,” he noted in his posts. “I am proud to have worked with so many talented people – many of whom will remain friends for life. Thanks to all the fans for your enthusiasm, support, and kind words over the years.”
On Twitter/X, he quote tweeted a video celebrating 30 years of Treyarch and featuring footage from many of the games he worked on to share his message. It appears the layoffs referenced are part of the broad reorganistation affecting 3200 jobs that Xbox announced earlier this year. Treyarch, as part of Activision Blizzard, is owned by Xbox.
Houston is a bonafide veteran of the esteemed FPS series. His first Call of Duty title at Treyarch was Call of Duty 3, where he worked as a video editor. This was followed by World at War, Black Ops 1 through 4, where he is credited as a writer and designer. For Modern Warfare, Black Ops – Cold War, Vanguard, Modern Warfare 3, then Black Ops 6 and 7, he is listed as a member of the design team and in ‘creative development’. He is not credited on this year’s Modern Warfare 4.
If you’ve picked up a Call of Duty game in the past decade-plus, you’ll have interacted with Houston’s work: he was a central creative force behind the writing for Treyarch’s campaign modes since 2006 (with Call of Duty 3) and the main writer for the Zombies mode since 2008 (with Call of Duty: World at War). Alongside Jimmy Zielinski, Jason Blundell, and Kevin Drew, Houston was an integral part of the evolution of the Zombies pillar of Call of Duty, and shaped it into the series-defining thing it is today. There has been a fair amount of community support for Houston since he announced the news yesterday; he was a popular dev, and a lot of the Zombies-specific fan communities online hold a lot of respect for him.
“Craig is a great guy,” notes one user on Reddit. “You can tell how much he loves the story/characters he writes just by how excited he is when he talks about them in promo material.”
“You’re a Legend Craig, it was an honor to work with you,” says ex-Treyarch vet, Tony Flame, in a reply to Houston’s X post. “You created a truly special experience that will live on in the kinds of millions fans. Wishing you the best […].”
From all of us here at Eurogamer, and myself personally – who really admires the character-work and emergent storytelling present in the Xbox 360-era Call of Duty games, specifically – we wish you the best and good luck with the future, Craig.