‘Over 40 redundancies’ at Crytek Budapest

Over thirty staff at Crytek Budapest will be made redundant after E3, according to reports.

It is said that nine people have already lost their jobs at the Hungarian dev outfit.

Avni Yerli, co-founder of the Crysis 2 company, confirmed to Gamasutra that the Budapest studio “is getting a new direction and focus".

Yerli did not respond directly on Gamasutra’s information that the Budapest studio will be reduced from 80 workers to about 35 be the end of the transition.

It was also alleged the development group will switch from work on an Xbox 360-exclusive Kinect game to focus on tablet titles.

With information from an anonymous source, Gamasutra says the workforce reduction was triggered by Microsoft’s “sudden decision” to ask Crytek to switch a Kinect project away from the Budapest team.

It is alleged the project has moved to Crytek’s Frankfurt base – the studio that had built the lion’s share of Crysis 2.

The Kinect-based title, allegedly called Codename: Kingdoms, is said will be revealed at Microsoft’s E3 press conference next month.

The project has been in development “for two years” the source said.

Crytek Budapest opened in 2007.