Disney Interactive is reportedly cutting off around 40 staff at Black Rock Studio, the team behind the arcade racer Split/Second and have reportedly pulled the plug on its sequel.

Eurogamer reports that a source close to the Brighton-based Disney Interactive Studios subsidiary has indicated that a number of staffers will be let go as voluntary layoffs begin tomorrow. "It's rumoured at Black Rock that there will be voluntary redundancies tomorrow - roughly 40, with the aim of reducing the studio to a single game team."

"It seems Disney have been unable to provide us with a project to work on, and our concept pitches clearly haven't gone down well (despite there being many of them)."

Current project affected by the layoff will include a sequel to 2008 quad-bike racer Pure and a follow-up to last year's Split/Second.

"After SS wrapped, we started work on SS2 pre-prod which was cancelled last December due to DIS's new management and their changing priorities (the push towards freemium etc) - SS2 didn't really fit in with that (despite some efforts to shoehorn it in).

"We had a concept week (everyone in the studio working on small teams) to try to come up with new ideas, but nothing really stuck. We had a freemium week sometime later with similar goals too.

"The inactive portion of the studio has been expecting redundancies for months, so this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone. It's sad that it's come to this of course, but for many people they'll be quite happy to take the money and go, as they've been sitting around doing nothing for months."

The source went on to add that a "good proportion" of the studio was actively employed on a "promising" title by Disney Interactive, with a "new and risky, so I imagine [Disney] don't want to risk putting two teams on it."

Via [Eurogamer]

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