Well this is awful. You might recall that, around eight months ago, Epic Games snapped up many of the developers left jobless after the collapse of Kingdom of Amalur's 38 Studios and Big Huge Games. This new company, Impossible Studios, seemed like the light at the end of a particularly dark tunnel - but it's just a few months later and the developers have been fired all over again. Epic founder Tim Sweeney made the announcement on their community site , stating that "ultimately it wasn't working out for Epic."
Here's the statement in full:
"We're closing Impossible Studios.
When former members of Big Huge Games approached Epic last year, we saw the opportunity to help a great group of people while putting them to work on a project that needed a team. It was a bold initiative and the Impossible folks made a gallant effort, but ultimately it wasn't working out for Epic.
In addition to providing Impossible Studios employees with 3 months of severance pay, we'll be giving the team the opportunity to form a new company with the Impossible Studios name and the awesome Impossibear logo.
This means that Infinity Blade: Dungeons is now on hold as we figure out the future of the project."
Still, at least they get to keep that logo. Eurogamer are reporting that Ken Levine has since expressed an interest in Irrational Games acquiring some of the laid off staff, noting in a Facebook status update that he's a "huge fan of everything Big Huge ever did" - a comment accompanied by a link to Irrational's hiring page. Hopefully those affected will land on their feet, whether they decide to reform the studio or not.
We'll keep you updated as soon we know more.
