🔜Capcom laid off approximately 30 percent of its Vancouver office as part of a reorganization aimed at tackling the next Dead Rising project.
f♋irst broke the news of the layoffs after an anonymous source familiar with the situation spoke with the site, indicating that the yet-to-be-announced next installment in the Dead Rising series was “over-scoped and under-staffed”.
A Capcom representative released the following 🧸statement to surrounding the🐻 news of the layoffs:
“Capcom Vancouver has undergone a restructure which has impacted approximately 30 percent of the studio, as part of its regular periodic assessment of upcoming projects and overall studio goals. The team is continuing to work hard to support the recent release 🐽of Puzzle Fighter for mobile and is dedicated to its flagship Dead Rising series.”
Cap𝔉com Vancouver is the studio behind the second, third, and fourth installments of the series, which centers on killing zombies iಞn humorous, over-the-top ways. Think Grand Theft Auto with zombies. Capcom Vancouver is also the studio responsible𒉰 for the Andrꦐoid and iOS mobile game, Puzzle Fighter, released in late 2017. The gem-puzzle game, first released on the original PlayStation😼 console in 1996, utilizes Tetris-like mechanics that players use to battle against one another with classic Capcom arcad♏e characters, such as Ryu and 🔯Chun-Li from Street Fighter, Mega Man, and – you guesജsed🍸 it – Frank West, the main protagonist throughout the Dead Rising series.
Over-scoped, 🌱understaffed, and underfunded reasons (to name a few) for studio layoffs – and games being cancelled outright – are all too common within the video game industry, and one of the biggest frustrations for fans passionate about certain series’. 2017 alone saw layoffs from heavy-hitting studios (The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones) and (Call of Duty, Destiny 2), the latter🐬 of which cited a light slate of games for 2017 as the primary cause for layoffs.
Capcom Vancouver’s current🌞 focus on the hi𝓀ghly downloaded Puzzle Fighter seems to be paying off nicely for the studio. Ratings of the game are trending above four stars on both Android and iOS p🎃latforms. Conversely, while the official fate of the popular Dead Rising series🅰 remains to be seen, any future game will likel🔜y need to up the ante from Dead Rising 4, which was met with mixed reviews compared with the first games in the series. Fans would be wise to refrain fromᩚᩚᩚ🍰ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ jumping to conclusions that Dead Rising is on any sort of chopping block. In August 2017, of twenty-year industry veteran, Tim Bennison, as the new studio director aimed at spearheading growth for the studio. With th🅷at in mind, the recent layoffs may be just the tip of the iceberg for moving the studio forward and positively impacting the future and quality of its games, which will hopefully include a new installment within the Dead Rising series.