Right on the heels of yesterdays news that NCsoft had laid off part of its Seattle staff, Eurogamer reports that End of Nations developer, Petroglyph, has also been impacted by a round of layoffs. The report indicates that as many as 30 may have been affected. The report was reinforced by Twitter post from End of Nations Designer Adam Stevens who wrote, Layoffs at Petroglyph. Looking like I'll be Leaving Las Vegas.
Naturally this led to speculation of the games cancellation, but End of Nations Community Manager Lance James took to the forums to indicate otherwise and announce that the games development is still pushing forward and has been moved in-house to Trions development studio in San Diego.
Hey guys, I wanted to give you a status update on End of Nations and let you know that were still moving full steam ahead with the game.
Since our last state of the game announcement we have been hard at work on getting End of Nations to where we want it to be. We are committed to making End of Nations meet our standard of AAA and we will continue to develop the game until it meets our standards. Rest assured that we are not giving up on End of Nations and that we are set on giving fans what they want.
To give you a little sneak peek into what we are working on, some of the changes youll notice will include improvements that ease the learning curve for new players, a revamped UI system, advancements in player strategy, and most importantly a more polished overall game.
As End of Nations was reaching the pre-launch phase in its lifecycle, we officially brought the game development in house to Trions San Diego Studio and will complete the development internally. Our team has been hard at work implementing many changes based on your feedback from the beta events. Keep checking back for more updates as we are looking forward to showing off some of the cool new things the team has been working on.
Thanks
The End of Nations Team
The report comes following the announcement that the End of Nations open beta start postponed until further notice.
As always, our best wishes go out to those that may have been affected by the layoffs.
Sources: Eurogamer, Lance James Post
Update: Eurogamer has confirmed that Petroglyph laid off 19 of its employees but more than 90 remain with the developer. Petroglyph will continue development on a number of projects across different platforms with releases planned through 2014.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our End of Nations Game Page.