Ten months after the closure of Evolution Studios, Sony has confirmed plans to shutter RIGS and Killzone Mercenary dev Guerrilla Cambridge.
Formerly SCEE Cambridge Studio, the developer has worked on such titles as 24: The Game, Primal, LittleBigPlanet and the MediEvil series over the past 19 years, but in light of today’s announcement, all staff will now be laid off. Sony will attempt to “reallocate people onto other projects” wherever possible, and it should be noted that the closure of Cambridge in no way affects sister studio Guerrilla Games, which is currently working on PS4 exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn.
It is regrettable that this decision will lead to compulsory redundancies. Whilst we accept that this decision will mean that we risk losing high calibre staff, by focusing on other Studios with exciting new projects in development, (including continued work on PlayStation VR), we believe we will be in a stronger position going forward and able to offer the best possible content of the highest quality to our players.
Explaining its decision behind the closure, Sony’s statement continued:
Within SIE Worldwide Studios, we have a regular process of review in order to consider projects coming to completion and the deployment of resources. In such a competitive landscape this enables us to continue to create and produce high-quality, innovative and commercially viable projects. Having reviewed and assessed all current projects and plans for the short and medium term, we have decided that in order to deliver on our strategic objectives, it is necessary to make some changes to the European studios structure.
As a result, it has been decided that Guerrilla Cambridge Studio will close.
Founded in July of ’97, Guerrilla Cambridge has undoubtedly delivered some spectacular titles for PlayStation platforms – PS4, PSP, PS Vita and PSVR – over the past two decades. We’ll continue to update this post as more information comes to light but for now, our thoughts go out to those affected by today’s layoffs.
