Red 5 Studios Strikes Employees, 'Reorganizes'

When Hellgate: London was all the rage and Flagship Studios seemed like the next big thing on the horizon, a studio by the name of Red 5 Studios, founded by former Blizzard and World of Warcraft team members showed up on my radar. It, too, seemed like the next big thing.

While little was known about what they were working on, their marketing campaign to recruit the ‘best and brightest’ in the game industry was huge, as they sent out dozens of specially made iPods to various individuals throughout the industry, inviting them to work for the company.

The game they were making was shrouded in secrecy, but they were said to have been working on a military-themed MMOFPS built with “web 2.0 and social networking capabilities”.

I can’t find the original quote, but Kotaku’s recent report about the company confirms that the game they were making was built upon an Offset Software-developed engine, part of an 18.5 million dollar deal with Korean publisher Webzen, known for their work on the MMOFPS Huxley (still in development), Soul of the Ultimate Nation and the multiplayer Diablo clone, MU Online. MU Online is, sadly, their only successful title to date.

In any case, the sad news (if you cared about the company at all) to report is that most of the ‘best and brightest’ it picked up years ago were fired today, as the company plans to ‘reorganize’ itself around developing a game for the Chinese market. Red 5 Studios, which had offices in both Irvine, CA and Shanghai closed its Chinese offices and is currently operating with a ‘skeleton crew’ back at home.

A press release of the company’s ‘reorganization’ plans can be read at the company’s official website.