Ubisoft Reflections, formerly Reflections Interactive, has had a visit from the layoff fairy recently, according to an anonymous source and later confirmed by a statement from the company. As such, nineteen employees will be getting severance pay in their stockings this year.

“We weren’t given names, but they took some people into a separate office afterwards, gave them a letter and took them out of the building,” the source said. “That was it.”

The source believes this is related to ongoing difficulties with their current project, Driver: San Francisco.

“There have been delays with the project, and because of our delays, Ubisoft have had to change their plans for our studio. What that means exactly I’m not sure. This is the first game that we have done for the current generation of consoles. We are obviously learning as we go along, developing our skills,” the source said. “We haven’t had much support from external sources.”

Additionally, even though word is the studio will live on past the release of Driver, the source hears worrying things.

“We’ve been told that we shouldn’t worry about what’s going to happen after the game has come out. To me that isn’t a very good sign,” the source said. “When the management are telling you not to worry about the studio and concentrate on the game, everyone gets worried.”

Despite these worries, an Ubisoft spokesperson promises that the studio won’t be set fire once the game comes out.

“What’s key at Reflections is that we are working on a small reorganisation, we need to ensure that we have the right skills mix for the Driver brand. The brand is very important to us, and Reflections is crucial as a studio. They have an expertise that none of our other studios have,” the spokesperson said. “It will absolutely keep going after Driver.”

It’s worth noting that Reflections developed the awesomely named Awesome for the Amiga and Atari ST in 1990. Awesome.

[via Develop Online]