The world’s largest publisher, Activision dropped a few bombshells yesterday when they announced their latest financial results. Not only did the entire Guitar Hero series get shelved, along with DJ Hero 3, the company also completely stopped the development of United Front Games’ True Crime: Hong Kong. The ModNation Racers‘ developer has now spoken about the cancellation of their project.
Activision CEO, Bobby Kotick stated that the reason for the True Crime reboot being canned was “based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world’s best interactive entertainment experiences.” Kotick’s right hand man Eric Hirshberg, COO of Activision Publishing, said the cancellation of the title was that it wouldn’t be able to compete against the best games in the sandbox genre.
United Front Games said regarding the sad news on their website:
We are sorry we did not get a chance to complete this project with Activision, but we understand why. We are both committed to doing quality games and nothing less. Maybe we will have a chance to work together in the future, but in the meantime we are setting our creative sights on a different horizon. You can keep up with the latest developments at UFG here on our site.
The future of the developer is unclear, and hopefully the independent studio will be able to weather the financial difficulties such a cancellation will inevitably cause.