Evolution Studios Faces Major Layoffs After Poor ONRUSH Launch
Codemasters Evo, the revived Evolution Studios team responsible for ONRUSH, has faced layoffs at the studio with several employees being let go as reported by Eurogamer.
One of the most notable of the layoffs is DriveClub and ONRUSH Game Director Paul "Rushy" Rustchynsky, responsible for both titles and has played a large role at Evolution Studios. Several senior members and creative leads on the team have also been let go alongside Rushy.
Eurogamer shed new light on ONRUSH's sales performance, noting that the title charted 34th on the UK Physical Games Sales chart during launch week and never appeared since. A source close to Eurogamer mentioned ONRUSH only sold just over 1000 physical copies during launch week in the UK.
ONRUSH launched on June 5th and has since received multiple 25-50% off sales and free trial weekends on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, indicting the title was far from a success for Evo and Codemasters.
Evolution Studios has had quite the rocky road already this generation with their first title DriveClub, which was set back 11 months from its intended release date and was met with a mediocre reception and broken online-play which resorted in an even longer delay for the PlayStation Plus edition.
Back in March 2016, Evolution Studios were shut down by Sony during DriveClub's DLC period not long after the release of DriveClub Bikes and several months before DriveClub VR. Codemasters quickly picked up the majority of the staff and rebranded them under Codemasters Evo where they produced ONRUSH in just under two years.
While I didn't have the chance to review ONRUSH due to exams around release, I genuinely enjoyed ONRUSH's unique spin on the arcade genre that had me hooked to its intense adrenaline-fueled events and banging soundtrack.
DriveClub still remains one of my favourite racing games of the generation, and it saddens me to see such a talented studio face a terrible unlucky streak. ONRUSH was a creative risk, and with sources describing the studio as being "decapitated" by these redundancies, and remaining staff feeling as if they now will working as a support studio or on less-risky projects, its a terrible day for fans of unique and creative arcade racers...
[Source: Eurogamer]