Horizon: Call of the Mountain PSVR2 Director Made Redundant by Dev Firesprite | Push Square
After almost seven years at the studio, Alex Barnes, director of PSVR2 spinoff Horizon: Call of the Mountain, has been made redundant by Liverpoool-based developer Firesprite. In March, a report from Eurogamer alleged that a toxic work culture had been allowed to develop at the PlayStation first-party developer.
In a post on Twitter (thanks, VGC), Barnes announced the sorry news, admitting that it «has been a tough time over the past few months». Barnes extended thanks and gratitude to those in the industry helping each other through this tumultuous time and to staff at Firesprite: «It has been the honour of a lifetime to have been a game director with a team like this.»
Sony announced significant layoffs in February, around 900 across the company's workforce. This resulted in around 10% of Guerilla Games staff being laid off, primarily from the Horizon Forbidden West team, with many other first-party devs seeing cuts. Presumably, Firesprite also saw reductions, but the exact numbers remain unclear. What the studio is working on is currently unknown, but it’s rumoured that Sony may have cancelled a live service take on Twisted Metal in development at the studio.
«Death by a thousand cuts»
What do you think of Barnes's departure from Firesprite? How optimistic are you about the studio's future? Let us know in the comments section below.
Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the most succulent of PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.
I loved CotM, sorry to hear this
Cotm had some huge technical issues that were never resolved, but the experience of seeing horizon IRL was really done so well, and the virtual climbing was a cool gimmick done well, Even if it got a little stale by the end. It deserved
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