David Jaffe to Exit Twisted Metal Developer Eat Sleep Play

It’s the worst time for Twisted Metal developer Eat Sleep Play to be rocking the boat. Excitement for the developer’s latest project has finally hit critical mass on the back of last week’s demo – which is some feat given that the title's been bubbling under the radar since its announcement way back at E3.

But rock the boat is exactly what Eat Sleep Play’s done. In addition to a small number of layoffs – presumably due to the completion of Twisted Metal – co-founder Scott Campbell has confirmed that the 26-person strong team is now readying a switch to iPhone and iPad development.

He explained:

It's a platform that is in our pockets almost 24/7. It's kind of the size and types of games we're playing. You can certainly reach a lot more people. That's pretty exciting for us.

With the change in philosophy comes the departure of fellow co-founder David Jaffe, who has confirmed that he’s set to exit Eat Sleep Play in order to found a new studio in San Diego. Previous rumours suggested that Jaffe was off to make “casual games” which he denied on Twitter, claiming the reports to be “greatly exaggerated”.

Jaffe said of his future endeavours:

I have zero plans to make Farmville and Angry Birds. I never said what I was [working on] post Twisted Metal. I will be opening a game studio here in San Diego because I miss internal game development.

Eat Sleep Play is based in Utah and Jaffe has been liaising with the studio via video links during the development process of Twisted Metal. “Games are just getting to big to direct from 300 miles away,” he explained.

Whatever happens next, Jaffe’s assured Twisted Metal fans that he’ll be staying with Eat Sleep Play long enough to ensure the car combat title gets the smooth launch it deserves.

He continued:

We’re totally supporting the game post launch with balance, tweaking, tuning and bug crunching. I’ve been saying this for a year, there’s no DLC planned. But the team – me included – is still cranking on Twisted Metal post launch. We’re amazingly proud of this game and love to the response to the demo.

In other news, Jaffe confirmed that a patch for Twisted Metal’s demo has been submitted to Sony in order to solve the game’s ongoing matchmaking issues.

Having followed much of Jaffe’s career, we’re eager to see what he tackles next. Almost all of the projects the developer has tackled have turned to gold – Calling All Cars! excluded – so there’s certainly reason to be excited.

We just wonder if Jaffe’s next project will be on a PlayStation platform or not.