According to one source familiar with Hangar 13, the studio has spent the past year trying to figure out its next project. One idea was a third-person action game with a “fight to music” system where your combat created songs, but it was recently dismissed. It is worth noting that Mafia III was Hangar 13’s first game.
Publisher 2K confirmed the layoffs in the following statement:
It is worth noting that, just a couple of months ago, Horizon: Zero Dawn lead quest designer David Ford had joined Hangar 13. It seems unlikely, but at the time of this writing, it is unknown whether or not Ford was affected by the layoffs. However, it doesn’t seem like success is necessarily a component in these layoffs, as Mafia III did commercially well.
Mafia III launched in October 2016 and shipped over 5 million copies by early 2017, making it was a commercial success for 2K. However, it has since received mixed and mediocre reviews, but it remains to be seen if any of these factors were a consideration in the layoffs. Considering a Bioshock Infinite designer has recently returned to 2K Games (presumably for a new Bioshock), time will tell if 2K was serious about these layoffs not influencing its ability to deliver games currently in development.
Mafia III is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Source: Kotaku
