this seems soon-to-be the Embracer cut. this company fucking sucks man. hate this shit
VGC reported earlier this month that Free Radical was at threat of being closed just two years after it was established, as part of huge company-wide cuts at Embracer and its owned publishers.
Although Embracer has yet to publicly confirm Free Radical's position, sources told VGC that Wingefors has now acknowledged in a company e-mail that the Nottingham, UK-based company could be closed on December 11, following the completion of a consultation process.
Borrowing money was cheap until it wasn't. When they bought the old Eidos stuff, everyone thought Square Enix was taking crazy pills. Now, given that everyone's cutting back right now, it looks more like they knew something Embracer didn't.
They bought everything up because loans were cheaper and this positions Embracer as a strong IP holder. They now have lots of IPs they own and while you might think "Well they got no one to make the IPs for them!" that might be true in-house, although they certainly have plenty of successful studios still they are busy they have their pick of IPs. Additionally, you can license out IPs for a lot of money with additional funding from the actual sale of the game while a third-party publisher foots the bill entirely.
And Embracer claims another victim. It feels like they aren't going to have many studios left when they finish their "restructuring" process. At least Wingefors was nice enough to acknowledge that the employees, who might be about to lose their jobs, are going through a slightly more challenging time than the executives who are deciding which studio is next on the chopping block.