In a surprising and very disappointing move, Sony have decided to close Guerrilla Cambridge with all employees to be laid off. Guerilla Games’ main studio in Amsterdam is unaffected, but it brings to a close the near 20 year history of another of Sony’s European studios.
Confirming the news to GamesIndustry.biz, Sony stated that “in order to deliver on our strategic objectives, it is necessary to make some changes to the European studios structure”. There are currently no reports of other studio closures.
They continued, “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.”
You have to be incredibly sceptical of that statement, though, with Guerrilla Cambridge having only released RIGS for the fledgling PlayStation VR platform and having had plans to continue to support that game long into the future. If anything, this feels like a repeat of the closures that followed in the wake of the PlayStation Vita launch, where BigBig Studios, Zipper Interactive and Studio Liverpool were all closed in quick succession, having just released games for the handheld.
Guerrilla Cambridge’s most recent game was RIGS: Mechanized Combat League, but it was preceded by Killzone Mercenary on PlayStation Vita. Prior to that, the studio was known as SCEE Cambridge Studio, and was best known for the MediEvil series, LittleBigPlanet for PSP, Primal and Frogger.
Sony have said that they will “where possible… try to reallocate people onto other projects,” and we hope that those now finding themselves without a job land on their feet as soon as possible.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
Sammy
It’s funny that they’re closing studios when they also don’t have that many 1st party/exclusive games, so what gives? You really can’t just bet on Naughty Dog to knock it out of the park every single time :) For every The Last Of Us, there must also be a Jak X, and honestly, it gets sort of boring to buy a console for one type of game when anything is else multiplatform…
The Lone Steven
But why? I mean, yes, they kinda haven’t deliever the same quality as they did with Killzone 2 but they are still doing a good job and RIGs has been recieved well. It’s not a crap game. The platform has a lot of gimmicky stuff on it and RIGs seems to be a proper game not a gimmicky tech demo. Why close this Sony? Ok, I know why but surely, keeping them on just for small budget VR titles is viable?
…….
They’re going to give up on VR in 6 months aren’t they? Just like the bloody Vita. SUPPORT THE DAMN SYSTEM INSTEAD OF GIVING UP AFTER A YEAR! FFS!
owenstoodstill
Honestly why do you think they are going to give up on VR?
That would make financially no sense at all, and I have to question if the people who come out with this statement have played VR.
VR is becoming huge, it’s clearly the future and not just for gaming. PSVR units are still impossible to buy new, they clearly have a high demand. To compare VITA and VR is just utterly ridiculous. Handheld gaming has been around for years and the vita was released as mobile gaming was taking off massively, the pricing for the unit and games was just impossible to make a success. VR is a completely different animal.
Also has it been confirmed that RIGS will lose support ? Guerrilla still have a studio, how hard would it be to work on updates ?
Jag
This is a real shame and I’m disappointed in Sony for closing another really good studio.
Killzone Mercenary was one of the best games on Vita and Rigs was one of the few big games to launch on the PSVR.
You can’t help but wonder if VR isn’t going to be as big a focus for Sony as promised now.
Surely they could have kept the team working on another big VR game given all they’ve learned from Rigs?
I hope all the developers affected manage to find new jobs as it must be especially hard right now with Brexit round the corner.
Andrewww
What a shame..! Killzone Mercenary was excellent, it’s one of the best Killzone games across platforms.
It really makes you wonder whether this is an indication of PSVR already failing due to the low adoption rate.