Codemasters Rehires "Most" of Evolution Staff

We reported quite some time ago on the state of Evolution Studios, the people behind MotorStorm and Driveclub, and how they were being carted off by Sony for mysterious reasons. It was sad, sure, but in a constantly changing and shifting business like the Games industry, that kind of thing is to be expected. But while a studio being shut down is no strange occurrence these days… a shut down game studio being picked back up certainly is.

Codemasters, the developer behind F1 and Dirt, has picked up the shambled remains of Evolution where Sony left them, and re-hired “most” of the old staff.

According to Codemasters CEO Frank Sagnier:

“I’m delighted to be joining Codemasters at such an exciting time in the company’s growth. We have a shared passion for racing, a desire to innovate and a determination to create the best racing games and build the biggest racing community in the market. I’m very much looking forward to working with so many of the world’s greatest racing developers, on new IP as well as exciting franchises including DiRT, GRID, Micro Machines™ and the FORMULA ONE™ games.”

The goal of this “merger”, if you want to call it that, is to turn Codemasters into the #1 name in racing, which is certainly a very achievable goal with “most” of the talent behind Motorstorm and Driveclub at your disposal. But it is important to remember: while they picked up “most” of the staff (I feel bad for whoever was left behind, sheesh), the IP and assets formerly belonging to Evolution still belong to Sony. So that means whatever the Evolution staff does now, it’ll be apart from their former digital baby.

But hey, at least “most” of them are back in the rat race again. Now nice for “most” of them.