High Moon Studios suffers 40 layoffs

Activision has laid off upwards of 40 employees at High Moon Studios following the development of upcoming third-person action title Deadpool.

The publishing giant said it had made the decision to cut the number of staff to “better align” its development talent against its release slate.

"Activision Publishing consistently works to align its costs with its revenues – this is an ongoing process,” read a statement from Activision to Kotaku.

“With the completion of development on Deadpool, we are taking a reduction in staff at High Moon Studios to better align our development talent against our slate. Approximately, 40 full-time employees will be impacted globally. We are offering those employees who are impacted outplacement counseling services."

As well as working on Deadpool, based on the character from Marvel Comics, California-based company High Moon Studios has previously developed a number of Transformers titles such as War for Cybertron, Dark of the Moon and Fall of Cybertron.

Deadpool is expected to be released during summer this year.