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Old School RPG developers’ Ghost Recon Commander to shut down; Loot Drop staff laid off

Ghost-Recon-Commander

Ghost Recon Commander comes from John Romero, Tom Hall and Jagged Alliance designer Brenda Romero. The tactical, semi-turn-based title deigned to be the first ‘real’ game on Facebook. But five months after its launch, Commander has been cancelled.

“Sad news,” tweeted Brenda Romero (formerly Braithwaite). “Today, Ghost Recon Commander was cancelled. As a result, we laid off a team of kick-ass developers. If you have openings, ping me.”

Some of the staff leaving the small studio already have “jobs-in-theory” after the news hit Twitter, said Romero.

“Very grateful to everyone who has reached out to the GRC team. Multiple interviews lined up for people already!”

“Thanks to Ubisoft, as well, for the opportunity to work on the Ghost Recon franchise,” she added.

This setback is the second in as many weeks for developers Loot Drop, who recently made the decision to ditch their Old School RPG Kickstarter project.

“Ultimately, our pitch just wasn’t strong enough to get the traction we felt it needed to thrive,” the team wrote in a Kickstarter update. “Sure, it may have made it. We could have fought our way to a possibly successful end. In reading your feedback and talking it over internally, however, we decided that it made more sense to kill it and come back with something stronger.”

Romero today reassured followers that the studio’s future is secure: “We still have two projects in the works (one live), and another in design. Right now, I care about the people we had to lay off.”

Commander is a funny old game: turn-based but keen to disguise the fact with a minimal UI, it was hours before I learned that if I took my time, the enemy AI would too. By that point, I’d spent all my grenades in desperation and wasn’t feeling charitable enough to cough up real money for more.

Still – its intentions were good, and thanks to the nature of its platform there’s not long left to play it. A sorry state of affairs.

Did you play any Ghost Recon Commander?

Thanks, GamesIndustry.