Silicon Knights staff numbers down to a skeleton crew - report

Silicon Knights is down to around five employees, which includes the company president Denis Dyack, according to a Kotaku report.

A feature on the site detailing development of X-Men: Destiny noted the headcount, citing former employees who claimed Dyack was more concerned with developing a pitch demo for Eternal Darkness 2 rather than polishing the X-Men game for Activision.

According to the anonymous, former staffers, 40% of the studio were working on the demo instead of the X-Men title.

"At SK, publishers are viewed with an extremely adversarial perception," claimed on source. "Instead of a symbiotic relationship, it was essentially parasitic. The less Activision knew about the goings-on at SK, the easier it was for Denis to spin his web of warped reality with them."

"We seemed to intentionally tank the game," claimed another former employee, who noted Activision was asked for an extension on the game, which the publisher refused to do as it would put the game over budget by 35%.

Instead, Activision announced the game publicly as being in development at Silicon Knights, essentially forcing the studio to buckle down with six-day work weeks and working 10-hours-a-day minimum.

X-Men: Destiny released in September of 2011 and it wasn't a financial or critical success.

Soon after, the studio laid off 45 employees after a separate project was canceled.

Thanks, GI International.