Take-Two has now confirmed it indeed shut down the studios behind Rollerdrome and Kerbal Space Program despite its CEO, Strauss Zelnick, previously saying in no uncertain terms, “we didn’t shutter those studios.”
Back in April, and despite previous reassurance that layoffs weren’t on the table, Take-Two announced a cost reduction plan that resulted in making 5% of its workforce redundant. Amid that announcement, a Bloomberg report claimed Take-Two had shuttered two studios: OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome developer Roll7 and Kerbal Space Program developer Intercept Games. However, Zelnick denied this in a statement provided to IGN at the time, saying very clearly, “We didn’t shutter those studios.”
Well, it seems they shuttered them. In a GamesIndustry.biz story about Take-Two’s confirmed sale of publisher Private Division, a representative for Take-Two confirmed both Roll7 and Intercept Games were shut down at some point before the sale of Private Division. It’s unclear if there was some sort of technicality hidden in the timing of Zelnick’s previous statement to the contrary that would make that statement accurate at the time, but at the very least it appears it didn’t paint a comprehensive picture.
Zelnick has been in the news quite a bit recently, mostly due to comments made during Take-Two’s most recent earnings call and an interview he did with Variety this week. Just a couple of highlights from such are him saying GTA 6 and Borderlands 4 won’t release near each other because “we wouldn’t, and no one would, stack up huge releases,” and a comment about the importance of building new IP in addition to tried-and-true hits like GTA and Red Dead Redemption.