3 years ago
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Update: Activision Blizzard has shared a statement with IGN denying that the company had undergone layoffs.
"There has not been a reduction in personnel recently at the studio," said a company spokesperson. "The development team is operating fully and has a number of full-time job openings at this time. The studio is excited to continue supporting Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, and more recently provide additional development support to Call of Duty: Warzone.”
IGN has reached out to Nicholas Kole for more detail on his statement about employees being let go.
Original Story:
Toys for Bob, the developer of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, has been assigned to support development on Call of Duty: Warzone – and seems to have suffered lay-offs as a result.
The studio, which was acquired by Activision in 2005, announced the news on Twitter, saying, "Toys for Bob is proud to support development for Season 3 of Call of Duty #Warzone, and look forward to more to come."
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It's a somewhat surprising move for a studio traditionally focused on games for younger audiences and, as Eurogamer points out, appears to have come with a number of staff exits, both voluntary and involuntary. Character designer Nicholas Kole explained that he's left the studio, adding that "everyone I interfaced with and worked along was let go". Crash 4 art director Josh Nadelberg and game designer Blake Maloof have also left the company.
Toys For Bob is seemingly the fourth studio to have worked on Warzone, with Infinity Ward leading the project at launch, before passing the baton onto Treyarch and Raven Software. Warzone has become a huge priority for Activision in the last year, which goes some way to explaining throwing major resources at it. We've contacted Activision for comment on what Toys For Bob's role is on the project, and the scale of the lay-offs.
Activision recently merged fellow Crash studio Vicarious Visions into Blizzard. The two studios' moves throw into doubt the future of the Crash and Spyro series, which had been revived or returned to in recent years.
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Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.