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One of Ontario’s most storied video game companies, Silicon Knights Inc., is dramatically smaller today after a sweeping round of layoffs.

The St. Catharines, Ont.-based studio behind such titles as Blood Omen, Too Human and Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, is one of Ontario’s oldest development studios and one of the province’s top employers of video game talent.

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On Monday, citing unnamed sources, gaming news Website 1up.com reported that Silicon Knights had dismissed 72 employees, bringing the company’s head count down to just 25 staff.

However, Mike Mays, chief financial officer of Silicon Knights, confirmed the layoffs to the Financial Post on Tuesday. Mr. Mays said the company laid off 45 employees — just under half its workforce — leaving an employee base of “just under 40.”

“We just finished a project with [Activision Blizzard Inc.] that got completed,” he explained.

“We had another project lined up that had been in the works for months, which had been green-lit and at the final second, at the high corporate level, the project got canceled. We don’t know why. Probably something to do with the publisher on their side, but that resulted in us having too many people so we had to do a layoff.”