Avalanche Studios seems to be pulling out of North America entirely as it announces two studio closures — New York and Montreal. The move has led to around 50 redundancies, which equals out to roughly 9% of its workforce.
Not to be confused by Warner Bros. Games’ Avalanche Software, Avalanche Studios is responsible for the Just Cause line of games. The Sweden-based developer launched its New York group in 2011 while its Montreal studio kicked off just last year in October, meaning that in barely eight months after the studio was opened, it was already shuttered. In a statement on the website, Avalanche states this wasn’t a decision taken lightly and was a necessary change to ensure a sustainable future for the studio.
Its subsidiaries like Expansive Worlds and Systemic Reaction are both safe from these layoffs and studio closures, with its offices in Malmo, Stockholm, and Liverpool unaffected. It isn’t abundantly clear why it’s pivoted outside of North America as a whole, but we assume it just wasn’t getting as much work done as it hoped, but at the same time, it seems unreasonable to close a studio less than a year after opening — and staffing — it.
