Following news last month that DriveClub and Motorstorm developer Evolution Studios was closing its doors for good, staff at the studio have been hired en masse by F1 2015 and DiRT maker Codemasters according to an update on the latter’s website today.
Mick Hocking, formerly of Evolution, is stepping into a VP of Product Development position at Codemasters and said of the union, “I’m delighted to be joining Codemasters at such an exciting time in the company’s growth. We have a shared passion for racing, a desire to innovate and a determination to create the best racing games and build the biggest racing community in the market.
“I’m very much looking forward to working with so many of the world’s greatest racing developers, on new IP as well as exciting franchises including DiRT, GRID, Micro Machines, and the FORMULA ONE games.”
Sony, which owned Evolution and its IP, said at the time that its decision to close the studio was the result of a regular review of its first party portfolio which deemed it necessary to make “some changes to the European studios structure.”
Evolution Studios was founded in 1999 by Martin Kenwright and Ian Hetherington and was based in Runcorn, UK. News of the studio’s closure came not long after Microsoft announced it would close another notable British studio, Lionhead.
While no one has stepped in to save Lionhead or in-development Fable Legends, there have been reports that staff at the studio may continue the project at a new independent venture.
The good news for racing fans is that we can hopefully expect to see the Evolution team’s games on non-PlayStation platforms including Xbox One and PC.
