Report: State of Emergency 2 developer shuttered

You don't have to read the reviews to know that State of Emergency 2 is bad news; just look at the path of destruction in the game's wake. The sequel was announced in October of 2003 by the original game's developer, VIS Interactive, which was purchased by Bam Entertainment four months later. VIS Interactive filed for bankruptcy in April of 2005.

Shortly after VIS' bankruptcy, Montreal-based DC Studios snagged the project from Bam and assigned it to its Edinburgh, Scotland, development house in May of 2005. Since that time, Bam Entertainment has followed VIS into bankruptcy, according to sources. And while DC Studios managed to release State of Emergency 2 for the PlayStation 2 in February of this year, poor sales have reportedly spurred the company to close the development studio responsible for the game.

Scotland's Sunday Herald is reporting that the studio has been closed and that its 29 staffers have been "made redundant." The paper says it received confirmation of the bad news from DC Studios founder and chief executive Mark Greenshields.

Sales weren't the only disappointing aspect of the game. "We had to pay a lot of money in order to complete the game," Greenshields said. "A lot of things were discovered after the acquisition. But when you buy something out of receivership, it's buyer beware."

The team had been working on two other unannounced projects at the time of the closure, Greenshields told the paper, and he stated that he would like to open up operations in Scotland again soon.

The article does not give an update on the status of the company's PlayStation Portable port of State of Emergency 2. GameSpot's calls to DC Studios' Montreal offices were not returned as of press time.