THQ confirms Kaos, Volition lay-offs

Homefront developer Kaos Studios and Saints Row team Volition have both been hit by a round of redundancies, owner THQ has announced.

According to a statement released to Gamasutra, 17 members of staff got their marching orders at Kaos, while 16 desks were cleared at Volition.

"We have had to let go of 16 employees at Volition, our studio in Champaign, Illinois," confirmed a THQ spokesperson. "We must adjust our workforce to fit the studio's current needs, which is a relatively common occurrence in the game development industry."

"Steps are being taken to ensure team members affected by the transition are treated with appropriate concern. The changes are not expected to affect any current or future titles in development with Volition."

Volition is currently working on Red Faction: Armageddon, Saints Row: The Third and inSANE.

THQ insisted that the redundancies at Kaos would not affect future DLC plans for its recently released Homefront FPS.

"Kaos has a dedicated team in place that will continue to support Homefront with an ongoing, robust DLC and content plan, as well as working on pre-production for future games.

"We have made changes to ensure that the team size aligns to the current stages of internal product development."

Before Homefront's release THQ exec Danny Bilson suggested Kaos faced an uncertain future dependent on how well the title performed at retail, with the prospect of being absorbed into the publisher's new Montreal base not ruled out.

Despite middling reviews, the game seems to have got off to a strong start, moving over a million copies in its first week on shelves.