55 jobs lost at Driveclub dev Evolution, report says

Driveclub developer Evolution could be about to lose half of its staff.

As many as 55 jobs could be lost at the Runcorn studio, according to two separate sources speaking to Eurogamer. The redundancies are affecting many of the permanent staff, although some are hopeful that they may be retained as contractors.

The process is still ongoing, with reasons for the cuts including finances” and a smack for Driveclub’s problems”. There are of course also obvious concerns that this could be the first step toward a permanent closure.

Added one: "The staff they kept are the best at what they do. If you wanted a fresh start for Evo, those are the people to do it."

News of job losses began to emerge last week.

We will be looking to relocate team members throughout the studios, but unfortunately some redundancies will be necessary and in those cases we will assist staff in any way we can,” Sony said in a statement.

Evolution Studios will now focus on DriveClub as a service going forward, in particular, the important launch of the PS Plus Edition. We will be restructuring Evolution Studios to ensure that SCE WWS and in particular, Evolution Studios are in the best position to achieve these goals.

Our first party development studios are key to our creative strategy and we are very excited about the future projects being worked on and the role Evolution Studios will play.”

Driveclub was supposed to launch alongside the PS4 in 2013 but did in fact not ship until last autumn. It was barely functional online at launch and endured numerous issues for many months. Sony has yet to release the free PlayStation Plus version of the game which was due to arrive on day one.