After reading that developer Free Radical is closing on Kotaku, which then had SPOnG saying the opposite, I didn’t know who to believe. SPOnG has an even longer track record of posting bad news over Kotaku, but this time, I wanted to believe SPOnG, I wanted to believe them oh so badly. Then the more reliable sources started coming in. Read on for the full scoop.

Though original announced as Free Radical has already closed it’s doors, more information has come that basically the current staff was in fact locked out of the building and is now going to be going under an evaluation of sorts. Cameraon Gunn who works with Resolve Partners, the company who is being called into handle this situation has released this statement:

“The company was placed in to administration yesterday afternoon.

“We will be spending the next three or four days assessing the financial position of the company but it’s business as usual, although we have asked that almost all of the employees apart from a skeleton crew remain at home.”

“All employees have been paid up until the end of December and we hope to make another announcement before Christmas or very soon thereafter, but we must stress at this stage that it’s business as usual.”

I think it’s safe to say all the blame goes on Sony and Star wars. How? Well, these are my two most disliked entities, so it is very very easy for me to see it this way. First we have Haze, a Sony exclusive that was doomed right when I heard that KoRn was making music for the game. The title bombed very quickly and no doubt did not help Free Radical in dealing with their next problem.

In October, LucasArts pulled out of a deal for an unnamed game (heavily presumed to be the next Battlefront game). Free Radical had been working on this title for TWO YEARS. DAMN YOU GEORGE LUCAS!

More than a year ago the company had put up a teaser for the next Time Splitters game. Some nifty concept was posted fairly recently. The company was even looking into bringing the title to the Wii and/or the Xbox 360. Now, the future of this is all very unsure.

The ONLY light at the end of this tunnel, is the news that Dave Doak (aka Dr. Doak from N64’s Goldeneye), one of the founders of Free Radical, has already left sometime last month and is in the process of starting a new development company called Pumpkin Beach. I hope he is able to hire as many of the 150+ staff that is now looking at a very shitty Christmas this year.

[Sources: Eurogamer | Edge | GameIndustry.biz]

Popularity: unranked [?]