While Dead Rising 4 may have served as a big comeback for photographer (and costume master) Frank West, it didn’t provide many happy returns when it came to Capcom Vancouver.
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The game got decent fanfare when it released for Xbox One in late 2016, followed by debuts on Steam/PC and PlayStation 4 (with Frank’s Big Package), but it doesn’t look like it met the sales numbers Capcom was expecting. As a result, its Vancouver office is letting some people go.
Kotaku is reporting that, according to an inside source, a “significant number of staff” have been laid off from the studio, around 50 people. This was due in part to a “reorganization” ordered by the company, meant to streamline business. That’s about 20 percent of Capcom Vancouver’s overall work force.
But it doesn’t appear that employees are the only victim here, as Dead Rising could be quite different with its next iteration. The sources have noted that Capcom will “cut scope” of the next game in the zombie-slashing series. It’s unknown what that specifically means, like the company considering a mobile game instead, or taking a new direction that strays away from what Dead Rising 3 and Dead Rising 4 provided over the years.
There was also an unannounced game in development at Capcom Vancouver, set to be a third-person action/adventure game taking place in an alternate version of New York. Sadly, this looks to be a casualty as well, as Capcom cancelled it before it could even be properly pitched.
Capcom hasn’t commented on the matter, but this isn’t the first time that the company has laid off workers from a studio with a large production budget – and we fear that it won’t be the last, especially with Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite reportedly performing below expectations. We’ll let you know what the company intends to do next.
As for Dead Rising, we’d love to see a new adventure, but it’ll probably be a while before we see Frank West back behind the camera again. So enjoy Dead Rising 4 for the time being on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.
Our thoughts go out to those that were laid off from the studio today.
