Eidos's curtly worded statement comes on the heels of the briskly selling Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, which missed Eidos' fiscal year cut-off in Europe, after numerous delays and more than two and half years of development time. The game was critically panned here in the US, launching with numerous B and C level bugs, and did not live up to Core's once-stellar reputation for delivering innovation in the 32-bit generation.
Eidos added: "The Eidos Board would like to express its gratitude to Jeremy for his contribution to the development of the Eidos Group over the past seven years."
Eidos representatives would not comment on the future of Heath-Smith at the company, and apparently no employees were aware of the change until this morning.
Heath-Smith founded Core Design in 1988 with 16,000 English pounds and a staff of eight. It's first title, Rick Dangerous, soared to the top of the charts in the early years, and the company has been responsible for numerous hits afterward, including Chuck Rock, Thunderhawk, Heimdall, and of course, the Tomb Raider series among others. Core was acquired by the CentreGold group in 1994 (comprised of US Gold and distributor CentreSoft), and in 1996 when Eidos acquired CentreGold, Core remained autonomous within the publisher's fold.
