Raccoon City Devs Lay Off Employees…Temporarily

The developer of this year’s Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, Slant Six, laid off 26 of its 96 employees, reports GameSpot. Apparently the employees were offered a choice between taking severance packages or temporary layoffs while the studios searches for more projects. After 13 weeks, however, the layoffs become permanent.

Slant Six offered a statement about the situation:

“Regretfully, we can confirm that there have been some temporary layoffs at our studio. We must stress that these are temporary layoffs, which means we are working very hard on new business prospects so we can reinstate every single person affected. As an independent and close-knit studio it is a very difficult but necessary business measure due to the current project cycle demands.”

In addition, the company’s remaining staff is currently working on two games, one “a collaborative game venture with a major publisher,” and the other being a downloadable, post-apocalyptic flight-sim called Strata Scavenger, which actually sounds kind of cool.

Even still, Operation Raccoon City earned middling reviews after its release, so it’s a little unsurprising to hear that it’s not able to sustain its current level of staff. I wouldn’t be surprised if a minimum Metacritic score was included in the company’s contract with Capcom—and that the game’s less-than-favorable reviews kept it from earning as much as they’d hoped.

Best of luck to those affected in the layoffs.

Via GameSpot