Initially reported by now ex-Radical Entertainment staff twitters,  and now confirmed by Jim Reilly, Activision has today announced the closure of Radical Entertainment.

Founded in 1991, the Canada based developer grew to fame thanks to a long line of sandbox games, including The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Scarface: The World Is Yours and The Simpsons: Hit & Run. Though having done plenty of independent work across multiple publishers, the studio was acquired by Vivendi in 2005, which by 2008 would put the studio under the banner of Activision, the latter having merged with the former publisher.

At Activision, Radical Entertainment would go on to established the Prototype franchise, the most recent of which, Prototype 2, was released earlier this year (see Rocket Chainsaw’s review). Unfortunately, middling public reception left the publisher underwhelmed by sales performance, today stating “Although we made a substantial investment in the Prototype IP, it did not find a broad commercial audience.”

As it stands, Radical Entertainment as well knew it will cease to be. Activision however is looking into options that will allows former staff to continue working with the publisher. We’ll have more as it becomes available.