She temporarily stepped down but was later reinstated after an outside investigation by Solertia Consulting Group reportedly found no “systemic sexual or psychological harassment” at the studio. Months later, however, an expose by alleged a toxic work environment at the studio, driven by creative director Simon Darveau and enabled by Lamarche. That game, Season, made a big splash with its dazzling trailer when it was revealed at the 2020 Game Awards. It launched in early access a year later, with the indie studio pivoting to its next project a couple of years later. “it’s been several months and efforts of just fucking trying to see what we could do, who we could talk to, how can we leverage more funds.”Įstablished in 2015, Scavengers announced the goofy, post-apocalyptic free-to-play battle royale game The Darwin Project at Microsoft’s 2017 Xbox Showcase. “It’s not a decision I took lightly,” Lamarche told Kotaku over the phone. The remaining employees will begin work on a new “gameplay-driven” project while the studio claims it will provide financial and psychological support, as well as extended health coverage benefits, to those laid off. “Unfortunately, this means parting ways with all but approximately sixteen members of the Scavengers Studio team.” “Given the current global economic context and Season’s financial results, we have been left with no choice but to make the difficult decision of downsizing the studio to a smaller, sustainable group of game developers,” she wrote in an email the studio shared with Kotaku. It revealed that Season, a game about a woman documenting the world from her bike before a cataclysmic event, had only managed to sell 60,000 copies in its first five months, apparently leaving the small, Montreal-based operation out of options. On June 20, Scavengers Studio CEO Amélie Lamarche sent an email to staff she’d never planned on writing when she co-founded it nearly eight years ago. But that didn’t stop the studio behind it from recently laying off over half of its developers. Season: A Letter To The Future checked both boxes, arriving on PlayStation 5 and PC earlier this year to some rave reviews that praised the open-world narrative game for its beautiful art and piercing meditation on the past and how we process it. The video game industry is littered with cancelled projects and bad games, so it’s amazing when something manages to 1.) get released and 2.) be really, really good.
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