It has been confirmed that the celebrated Nottingham developer Free Radical Design, founded in 1999 by members of the Goldeneye/Perfect Dark team. While the 185 strong staff has been paid for the remainder of the year, the locks have been changed with only a skeleton staff still working on a few concepts. Things went sour for Free Radical Design after the much anticipated Haze on Playstation 3 failed to convince both critics and buyers. The studio still had a major contract with Lucasarts in Star Wars: Battlefront III, but Lucasarts pulled out of the deal in October. Free Radical Design had also been working on Timesplitters 4 for a year, but with no publisher in sight the studio was bleeding fast and heavy.
It has been reported that one of the founders Dr Dave Doak left the company in October, and that another founder Steve Ellis is setting up a new company where he will be joined by about 20 former Free Radical employees. Our thoughts go out to the employees of the company who got this terrible piece of news right before Christmas.