Citing sources close to the studio, Video Games Chronicle that Timesplitters developer Free Rad💮ical is facing closu💧re by Embracer Group.
The original Free Radical filed for bankruptcy in 2008 after the cancelation of Star Wars: Battlefront III and a failed bid at a Goldeneye 007 remake for Activision. The remains of the studio were bought up by Crytek, rebranded Crytek UK, and the staff went to support some of that developer’s games, such as the Crysis series and Warface. During this time, a lot of the staff . Most of the remaining staff was later transferred to Dambuster Studios under Deep Silver, where they worked on Homefront: The Revolution and Dead Island 2.
In 2021, Deep Silver (a subsidiary of Plaion and Embracer Group) reformed Free Radical with some of the key staff returning, including Steve Ellis and David Doak. The intention was for them to revive the Timesplitters series.
According to Video Games Chronicle, Embracer and Plaion “must consult employees for a minimum of 30 days before making any redundancies, in🐷cluding exploring ways of avoiding them.” This means that the studio could remain open, but as VGC initia༺lly reported, many key staff are .
If the closure of Free Radical goes through (and it looks like it will), this will be another in a long line of closures and layoffs for Embracer Group. This folꦕlows the loss of a potential $2 billion investment that reportedly fell . It’s been really painful to see so🌼 many losses due to the failures of an overly optimistic, expansion-hungry corporation.
Beyond Embracer Group, many other companies have been laying off huge portions of their staff, including Epic Games and Ubisoft. It’s not a fun time to be coveri🌠ng this industry, let alone working in it.
Published: Nov 8, 2023 12:23 pm