In June 2021, as part of the high-profile Summer Game Fest streaming event, a new and pretty major game studio was first announced. Deviation Games was formed by Dave Anthony and Jason Blundell, two former members of Activision"s Treyarch studio which was in charge of its popular Call of Duty: Black Ops series. In particular, Blundell has been credited as the main creator behind Call of Duty"s Zombies mode, which has continued in many of the subsequent CoD games.
When the studio was formed, it also revealed it had a deal with Sony to make an original AAA game for the PlayStation division. Unfortunately, it was revealed this week Deviation Games has now closed down before releasing that still unnamed and unrevealed game.
The official word of the shutdown was revealed via a Linkedin post from Kriste Stull, the now-former Chief HR and Operations Officer at the studio. In her post, she said:
I want to express my deepest gratitude to our entire team. Thank you for all your hard work, dedication, and contributions to Deviation; I"m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have worked with each and every one of you.
It"s unclear at the moment how many people were affected by the closing of the studio. However, there were signs there might have been trouble at Deviation before this week"s shutdown. In September 2022, Deviation Games stated that co-founder Blundell had departed the team for unnamed reasons. In May 2023, a number of its team members were laid off.
The closing of Deviation Games is just the latest in a string of closings and layoffs that have affected many in the game industry in 2024. That includes Microsoft which laid off 1,900 team members in January, and Sony, which cut 900 jobs in late February, and closed its London studio.