Striking staff at Quantic Dream have warned that if the studio proceeds with its plans to lay off 115 developers, its upcoming Star Wars Eclipse game “literally cannot be finished”.
Last month, Quantic Dream announced it was closing down its MOBA-with-flying game Spellcasters Chronicles, which only launched in early access in February this year. It warned that as a result it would undergo a “reorganisation” but insisted development of Star Wars Eclipse – a High Republic-era Star Wars adventure announced in 2021 would not be impacted.
Now, as reported by GameKult, developers have hit the picket line to “strongly alert management” that the team “absolutely need the 115 people who have been inactive for a month already”.
Insisting that keeping some of the 100+ developers affected by the closure of Spellcasters Chronicles is necessary, one developer explained the industrial action, which coincided with a visit from Lucasfilm Games, was not “sabotage”.
“It’s far from being an act of sabotage,” they said, as translated by machine (and a very rusty GCSE French). “On the contrary, we’re trying to save Star Wars Eclipse. We could manage to release it with 115 additional people, and that wouldn’t be ‘overstaffed’: it’s what’s needed. We’re understaffed, like in many other companies in the sector, because bosses know very well that passion will lead people to crunch time and that games will eventually be released. But it’s impossible to run a sustainable industry like that,” (thanks, VGC
Another added: “We believe that, as things stand, the game literally cannot be finished if the redundancy plan is implemented as currently scheduled. We absolutely need the 115 people who have been inactive (or almost) for a month already. That’s a whole month of lost production! During that month, employees could have been trained on the specific tools of Star Wars Eclipse. We also want to strongly alert management and tell them to look at all these people who are eager to work but aren’t, on the day of an official visit.”
Star Wars Eclipse, a High Republic-era Star Wars adventure, was announced in 2021.