United Front Games makes redundancies

United Front Games, which was developing open world title True Crime for Activision until its cancellation earlier this month, has made at least twenty five redundancies, reports indicate.

Joystiq has reported the job losses at the developer, which were initially verified via the company's LinkdIn page. A statement issued to the site from the developer reads as follows:

"Due to the fact that True Crime is no longer in production, a number of roles have been made redundant which unfortunately, has led to a reduction in staff. UFG is still very much open for business and we will continue to ship top games."

The studio, based in Vancouver, has only brought one game to market so far - the generally well received ModNation racers for Sony. True Crime was due to be the company's second release, but became a casualty of Activision's stringent cutbacks after coming in for some harsh criticism from Activision Publishing boss Erik Hirschberg.

Speaking in Activision's conference call accompanying the financial report, Hirchberg told listeners that the game was "not going to lead to a title at or near the top of the open world genre. To be blunt it just wasn't going to be good enough."

However, there appears to be little bitterness held by UFG staff towards their erstwhile publisher - a statement on the company's website expresses regret about the cancellation, but no anger.

"TRUE CRIME: We are sorry we did not get a chance to complete this project with Activision, but we understand why," reads the post. "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."