Not long after Microsoft announced the closure of Lionhead Studios, Sony themselves today were the bearer of bad news. Evolution, the UK based developers behind Driveclub, would be shutting down with Sony releasing a statement on the unfortunate news.
Regular reviews take place throughout SCE Worldwide Studios, ensuring that the resources that we have in such a competitive landscape can create and produce high quality, innovative and commercially viable projects.
As part of this process we have reviewed and assessed all current projects and plans for the short and medium term and have decided to make some changes to the European studios structure.
As a result, it has been decided that Evolution Studio will close.
It is regrettable that this decision will lead to compulsory redundancies. We accept that this decision will mean that we risk losing high calibre staff but by focusing on other Studios that already have exciting new projects in development we believe we will be in a stronger position going forward and able to offer the best possible content of the highest quality for our consumers.
Where possible we will try to reallocate people onto other projects. If appropriate opportunities are not possible within the company, we will assist staff in any way we can, including speaking with local employers and with other development companies.
Evolution has been an important part of SCE Worldwide Studios for over 10 years – working on ground-breaking racing titles like WRC, Motorstorm and DRIVECLUB.
This decision should not take anything away from the great work that Evolution has produced.
This isn’t the first time they were hit with bad news, as they originally had layoffs last year when their focus shifted to continuously update Driveclub as a service. As the statement above addresses, Sony will try to move a portion of the staff onto other projects but ultimately there will be losses.
Driveclub game director Paul Rustchynsky and Evolution community manager Jamie Brayshaw released tweets following the announcement which you can see here and here respectively.
