Radical Entertainment, the Vancouver-based developers behind [Prototype], [Prototype 2] as well as last generation’s Hulk Ultimate Destruction and The Simpsons: Hit and Run have close their doors Activision confirmed today.
News of the closure spread around social media rather quickly with former members of the studio breaking the news over twitter. Oddly, updates to the companies’ Facebook and Twitter accounts happened mere hours before the closure was announced, suggesting that this closure came about rather quickly.
Activision, the parent company of radical entertainment, issued a statement regarding the closure.
Although we made a substantial investment in the Prototype IP, it did not find a broad commercial audience. Radical is a very talented team of developers, however, we have explored various options for the studio, including a potential sale of the business, and have made a difficult conclusion through the consultation process that the only remaining option is a significant reduction in staff. As such, some employees will remain working for Radical Entertainment supporting other existing Activision Publishing projects, but the studio will cease development of its own games going forward.
With Radical’s closure, as well as layoffs at Sega and the mess that was the closure of 38 Studios, it’s not a great time to be employed in the gaming industry. Who knows when the next axe will fall, hopefully we won’t have to write any more stories about developers closing the doors in the foreseeable future.
We wish everyone who lost their jobs at Radical the best of luck.
Source: Kotaku