Be interesting to see what that Kotaku report says when it comes out - just spoiling a surprise is unlikely to be enough to be fully blamed (and generally isn’t the kind of news Kotaku does anyway) so I’m instead expecting one about how unhappy the staff are etc.
“As that project was never announced and cancelled as of today, whether that was truly an Xbox project or not will never be known.”
Presumably, it won’t be long before more info leaks…
It seems difficult to understand how currently unpublished leaks have closed the company, I wonder if the game was months or years off hitting milestones and the developer was trying to hide this. I guess that could lead to a publisher deciding to cut a developer off if they didn’t have confidence that the game was likely to recoup the necessary budget increase.
Bummer though, I wonder if any of the staff were expecting this - yet more game dev casualties.
Previous reports about Jeff Strain’s leadership is rife with alleged misconduct, so I think I’ll wait to hear from the employees before I listen to Strain.
Xbox State Of Decay Studio Allegedly Hit With Sexism, Burnout (kotaku.com)
Interestingly enough this is not the first time Jeff has acted in response to something about his company leaking out: back when this Kotaku article posted, he immediately followed up with a rebuttal article (that’s now long deleted but here’s a wayback cap of it.)
It is always sad to hear about a game studio closing and people being let go.
If the rumored game really was Shadowrun related that is disappointing, but at least Microsoft was still trying to do something with it.