Activision castaways form new indie unit

A band of developers made redundant at Activision subsidiary Vicarious Visions have returned with a new independent studio.

Bat Country Entertainment officially launched this week along with its first project, the Xbox Live Indie Game AardBloxx.

The studio is mainly comprised of staff made redundant at Vicarious, company CEO Mike Chrzanowski has said.

In February it was revealed that some fifty developers had lost their jobs at Vicarious, after its Guitar Hero project had been suspended.

Yet Chrzanowski reveals to Develop that a previous layoff operation took place at the firm last year – a move which had not been made known to the public.

“Last fall I was part of a small layoff operation at Vicarious Visions, months before the large Guitar Hero layoffs,” Chrzanowski said.

“I saw this as a good opportunity to take my career to the next level and started up my own independent game studio with many of my friends from VV”.