Split/Second 2 Cancelled....NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Amidst a year of high quality, under-performing racing titles, Split/Second was probably my favorite (and certainly one of the best-reviewed). Sadly, it looks like the wished-for sequel is not in the books, as developer Black Rock Studios is rumored to be cutting its staff considerably.

Eurogamer reports from an anonymous source inside Black Rock Studio that tomorrow the studio will begin a round of voluntary layoffs meant to cut the staff by approximately 40 people. The studio will reportedly stick around but with a new focus on creating a single game at a time.

The anonymous source also revealed that they had been working on a sequel to Split/Second, but it was canceled in December. Since that time, most of the studio has had nothing to work on as "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)." A follow-up to 2008 release Pure is mentioned as another project that was dropped.


UPDATE: Disney has confirmed layoffs at Black Rock Studio to Joystiq, saying: "Disney Interactive Studios confirms a reduction of its workforce from its Brighton-based internal game development studio, Black Rock Studios. The studio will continue its work on its current project." Good luck to both those left at Black Rock Studio and those exiting the team today.

Black Rock Studio and Disney Interactive's Split/Second is one of a handful of great recent racing games that struggled to find an audience (Disney's Pure and Activision's Blur being two others). Now some assets from the now-canceled Split/Second 2 have leaked online.

While the art assets, posted by gaming website SystemLink, aren't terribly revealing, they do confirm that the sequel to Split/Second was once in development at Black Rock, which suffered significant layoffs earlier this year. Some of the terminated Black Rock employees have formed a new studio called Roundcube Entertainment.

This is sad news. This is one of my favorite games to come out in the last few years. The gaming industry is failing for the average gamer. Everything is getting cancelled and studios are being shut down.

I remember the "Split/Second Vs Blur" argument of which game was better because they both released around the same time. Clearly, Split/Second is easily better. Blur used real cars, but the cars were boring. I'll settle it for the debaters:

Sound: Split/Second has the better sound. Just look at what's going on in the game. It sounds like an action movie while Blur's sound is a bit more muted and not really interesting.

Gameplay: Split/Second has it. This is an easy one. Blur doesn't have much going on in the gameplay department. It's cool to shoot projectiles and such and it also boasts more players on the track at once (20 vs S/S' 8 ), but it lacks excitement until there's lots of players playing. Most of Blur's tracks are also boring. Split/Second has destructibility in the tracks in which you can punish your rivals with while making an entirely new path to travel to victory. If you get the red bar meter at the bottom of your car, you get to see some interesting stuff.

Here's an example of what you can call on your opponent:


Graphics: Actually, this one is probably the easiest as it goes to Split/Second with no competition. Split/Second has nice effects and color with good lighting for the cars and the environment. Blur's graphics are bland and flat in comparison. The game looks like a 2001 Xbox game...oh wait. Using real cars would've benefited Blur if they had more going for them instead of just basic colors and shine. Most of those cars are pretty ugly also.

For the comparisons between the Burnout Series and Split/Second, Burnout's last great games were Burnout3: Takedown and Burnout Revenge when they were track based instead of open world based like Burnout Paradise is. Those games had more concentration on the tracks and more variety than an all open world Burnout. There should be a Burnout Revenge 2. I like both games for different reasons, but Split/Second 2 would've been a big hit and I think arcade racing fans wanted to see that one return as it stood out.

Their other racing game, PURE, would've been a big hit also, but for that game, they should've taken the old Midway Games' approach to track design. PURE's tracks wasn't bad, but they could've been more varied and over the top similar to Midway's Arctic Thunder for example.

I really hate to see Split/Second go and wish there could've been a Kickstarter program help fund it, but that probably only works out better for smaller indie studios. I hate to see one of the good ones go.

SOURCE: gameinformer

wow that really sucks i all so love racing games and this did look like a good one.