Avalanche Studios is closing its Liverpool studio and going through layoffs throughout the corporate following the cancellation of Contraband.
“In mild of present challenges to our enterprise and the trade, we’ve got totally reviewed how one can finest guarantee Avalanche Studios Group’s long-term success,” reads a notice posted on the studio’s web site.
“This assessment has led us to the tough conclusion that we should make modifications to our staging and places. In consequence, we’re proposing to shut our Liverpool studios, and to provoke a collective session course of, as required by UK regulation.
“It will affect all Avalanchers in Liverpool. The modifications may also affect our different studio places in Malmo and Stockholm, the place we are going to scale back our workforce and restructure the groups to deal with our video games’ wants.”
Avalanche is finest recognized for the studio behind the Simply Trigger sequence, and Contraband was set to supply a co-op open-world recreation set within the Nineteen Seventies.
Nonetheless, though the sport was initially introduced with a cinematic trailer throughout E3 2021, nothing had been seen within the 4 years since that preliminary reveal.
It was then introduced final month that growth of Contraband was ‘on maintain’, with Avalanche saying “lively growth has now stopped whereas we consider the challenge’s future” and that it might “give an replace on what’s subsequent as quickly as we are able to”.
That is the most recent casualty in Microsoft‘s widespread restructuring. Earlier this yr, Microsoft’s gaming division confirmed it was making a recent spherical of layoffs, with head of gaming Phil Spencer saying the cuts have been designed to “finish or lower work in sure areas of the enterprise and observe Microsoft’s lead in eradicating layers of administration to extend agility and effectiveness”.
Following the information, it was then confirmed that Microsoft had cancelled Uncommon’s long-in-development RPG Everwild, in addition to Good Darkish (together with its studio The Initiative).
