Outspoken developer Harvey Smith, most recently employed by Midway Austin on the troubled
BlackSite: Area 51 project, has departed the company in the wake of candid comments about the tumultuous nature of the project and the game's critical drubbing.
According to Midway spokesperson Johner Riehl, "Midway can confirm that Harvey Smith is no longer an employee of the company." No further comment was offered by the company. At present Gamasutra cannot confirm whether Smith left Midway voluntarily or not. The news was
first reported by game editorial site GameTap Read.
Earlier this week, in a session at the Montreal International Game Summit, Smith
reportedly laid into the development process of the game in a surprisingly blunt way: "This project was so fucked up."
The game was released on PC and Xbox 360 in North America on November 11 to mediocre reviews from the enthusiast press, with aggregator
Metacritic pegging the Xbox 360 version of the game at a 65 out of 100. A PlayStation 3 version is still due for release.
While Smith had already alluded to the difficulties of the project in
an interview on Gamasutra earlier this year, his statements at MIGS cut even closer to the bone. According to
Shacknews, an unnamed Midway executive referred to the MIGS talk as "his public resignation."
