The independent studio comes to the aid of developers who worked on Reckoning

Jun 8, 2012 00:11 GMT  ·  By

As many Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning fans know, the developers of the game, 38 Studios and Big Huge Games, went bankrupt and were forced to lay off all of their staff. In order to help those left without jobs in Baltimore, Epic Games has now confirmed that it’s setting up a new branch called, for the moment, Epic Baltimore.

Both 38 Studios and its subsidiary, Big Huge Games, had big teams that were laid off last week following financial problems after the release of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Since everything became official, an array of studios started recruiting from among the former developers of the two studios.

Epic Games has now made the biggest effort to help those left without a job, as the large independent dev confirmed that it’s setting up a new branch in Baltimore and will recruit as many Big Huge Games staff as possible.

“On Wednesday, the ex-BHG leadership team contacted us,” the studio’s president, Mike Capps, said.

“They wanted to start a new company and keep together some of the key talent displaced by the layoff, and hoped that they could use an Epic IP as a starting point for a new game. We loved that they all wanted to keep working together, but it was pretty clear they’d have trouble building a demo and securing funding before their personal savings ran out.”

“In one of life’s coincidences, Epic’s directors had spent the morning discussing how we’d love to build even more successful projects with our growing team, but that we’d need a dramatic infusion of top talent to do so. Which, we all knew, was impossible. So now we’re planning to start an impossible studio in Baltimore,” he added.

Until everything is set up, Epic is bringing quite a few people to its headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, in order to supply them with a steady paycheck before it can open the doors of Epic Baltimore.

Capps also thanked other studios in the southeast of the U.S. for recruiting the Big Huge Games staff and promised that it was trying its best to help the developers.