EA shuts down DICE Canada

Earlier this week, Digital Illusions CE (DICE) and Electronic Arts announced that the long-in-the-works acquisition of the Swedish studio best known for its Battlefield series of first-person shooters was finally official. And now the first postmerger news from the pair is that Electronic Arts is shutting down DICE Canada, a London, Ontario-based offshoot that focused primarily on booster packs and patches for games.

An EA spokesperson confirmed for GameSpot that the studio is being closed, with development on its current projects being moved to the Stockholm, Sweden, DICE studio. The move will affect "roughly 30 employees," with "several" of those currently interviewing for positions at other EA branches in North America.

Last year, DICE was on the other end of a similar situation. Less than a week after its PC first-person shooter Battlefield 2 went gold, the company shut down Trauma Studios, a New York-based team it had acquired some nine months earlier to work on the project. Ultimately, much of the Trauma Studios team reformed under THQ as Kaos Studios.