Thirty-eight people were laid off today from Red Storm Entertainment, the Ubisoft-owned studio co-founded by Tom Clancy and best known for the Ghost Recon franchise.
The publisher confirmed the layoffs at the North Carolina-based stdio with Kotaku. A spokesperson for the company said the cuts were due to "a realignment of production priorities" and noted that "these team members have the opportunity to consider positions in other Ubisoft studios," a company spokesperson said in an e-mail.
It's unclear which production priorities changes and if the layoffs represent the cancellation of any Red Storm games. At least one publicly-announced project will continue, according to the Ubisoft rep: "Red Storm remains an integral part of Ubisoft's worldwide production team and will continue to work on the multiplayer component of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier."
UPDATE: Answering a follow-up question about whether the layoffs signaled the cancellation of a game, a Ubisoft spokesperson said, "The decision was part of a plan to allow the studio to focus on its core expertise: developing innovative multiplayer experiences."
Red Storm was founded in 1996 by best-selling author Tom Clancy and Navy veteran Doug LittleJohns. The studio focused on military games, mostly shooters, producing the popular Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six series. But both of those franchises have moved partially into the hands of other studios. Red Storm's most recently released games are 2007's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 and America's Army: True Soldiers.
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