At the end of last year, more than 100 employees of Avalanche Studios, producers Just cause, . Employees Collective agreement with Unionen of Sweden and Swedish Engineers unions. The agreement enters into force in the second quarter of 2025.
While the specifics of the agreement remain unknown, Avalanche said it will “help standardize frameworks around critical areas such as wages, benefits, employee impact and career support.” The company says it is working closely with both unions to ensure the smooth implementation of these frameworks.
Avalanche was founded in Sweden but has since become a global entity. With that in mind, the unionization only affects employees based in Sweden, which number around 100. The company employs more than 500 people worldwide.
Despite this caveat, this is still another high-profile step towards improving workers’ rights in the gaming industry. Avalanche joins several other companies that have recently organized under a collective bargaining agreement. Sega of America employees , a move affecting 200 employees. More than 300 ZeniMax Studios quality assurance employees , and parent company Microsoft didn’t stop it. Activision, another Microsoft company, has a union with more than 600 members. .
All of this is good news for workers, but there is also a dark cloud surrounding the industry. there is over the past few months. More than 6,000 people lost their jobs in January alone. Affected employees come from many of the aforementioned companies, including Sega of America, Activision Blizzard, and ZeniMax.
As for Avalanche, it’s still a work in progress . The game is set in 2021 and appears to be an open-world co-op adventure set in the 1970s.
