Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games will lay off its employees at the end of June according to a senior team manager, despite Take-Two Interactive boss Strauss Zelnick insisting earlier this month that the studio hadn’t been shut down.
Word of Intercept Games’ impending demise – and the loss 70 jobs at the studio – came earlier this month via a decidedly official Washington state closure notice submitted by Take-Two itself, and was corroborated by affected employees on social media. Later, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier – after viewing an internal Take-Two Interactive email to staff – reported OlliOlli World developer Roll7 was also being closed down.
That didn’t stop Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick from later repeatedly insisting, “We didn’t shutter those studios.” But whatever semantic technicality Zelnick was invoking at the time, it isn’t one likely to impress employees at Intercept Games.
Kerbal Space Program 2 senior design manager Quinn Duffy has now posted to LinkedIn saying the Intercept team will be laid off as of 28th June. “I got to know the designers pretty well in my all-too-brief time there,” he continued. “These are some fantastically smart and talented people and I’m happy to vouch for their qualities. And I can say the same about the other disciplines – good folks across the board.”
Take-Two – perhaps unsurprisingly given its refusal to acknowledge Intercept’s closure – hasn’t yet commented on Kerbal Space Program 2’s future. However, thousands of early access purchasers have vented their frustration as the publisher’s silence continues, pushing the £44.99 game’s recent Steam rating down to Overwhelmingly Negative in light of Intercept’s reported closure.
In April, Take-Two announced it would be laying off five percent of its 11,000-strong workforce – equal to around 550 people – and canceling multiple in-development projects, despite Zelnick saying the company had “no current plans” to lay off staff just weeks before.
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