Layoffs became a plague across Central Texas in 2024 as thousands lost jobs and companies closed their doors. One loss saw the end of an Austin-based entertainment company that had been delighting fans for more than two decades.

Rooster Teeth was founded in 2003, the same year it launched Red vs. Blue, a machinima-styled show that used Halo: Combat Evolved to tell a story of two groups of isolated, opposing armies dropped into a barren canyon. The show quickly became a hit, thanks to its parody of both wartime narratives and military video games.