Ion Storm Officially Closes Up

After many rumors that circulated amongst the gaming world through 2004 about Ion Storm’s future, the studio’s final chapter has been written and etched in stone. Eidos Interactive has announced that they will be shutting down the Austin, Texas based studio Ion Storm.

Eidos had this to comment, "This will mean the immediate closure of the Ion Storm studio in Austin, Texas, which has been focused primarily on the development of PC and Xbox games…. This is part of [Eidos'] move to consolidate and strengthen it’s technical and management capabilities into a smaller number of studios which are capable of scaling up in order to meet the competitive challenges that lie ahead particularly in anticipation of next-generation technologies and platforms."

With the closure of the firm, Eidos has said it will result in "the displacement of some 35 jobs." Although, Eidos has added that they will be scaling up the development staff at it’s Crystal Dynamics studio in San Francisco. The number of employees at the Crystal Dynamics studio is expected to rise by up to 50, bringing the head count up to nearly 180. Crystal Dynamics is currently working on the next Tomb Raider game.