Junction Point, developer of the Epic Mickey games, has closed its doors following the poor reception of Epic Mickey 2.
Disney have confirmed that Warren Spector, designer of the original Deus Ex, “will not be staying” with the publisher.
While the first Epic Mickey game was a big success, selling more than 13 million copies in its first monthin North America alone. The recent sequel sold just 270,000 copies.
The game reviewed poorly also. A look over at metacritic shows that the Mickey was unable to break 70 points on any platform, instead sitting between 56 and 64 across the different releases.
Considering the Epic Mickey titles never reached the PC you may wonder why this news is relevant to our site. Well, with a spokesman of Disney confirming that Spector “will not be staying with Disney,” it means one of PC gaming’s most influential developers is back on the market. Hopefully we’ll see him finding safe harbour at a studio that allows him to get back to doing what he does best, developing involved genre-defining titles like System Shock, Deus Ex, and the Thief games.
Disney have not implied they will be re-staffing the Junction Point team.