You’re forgiven if you’d forgotten about Star Wars: Eclipse. After being revealed with a flashy cinematic trailer in 2021, all we heard about Quantic Dreams’ Star Wars game was the briefest of mentions in a blog post by studio founder and CEO David Cage last year, in which he said, “Of course, development of Star Wars: Eclipse continues, and we are eager to share more with you in the future.”
Quantic Dream was also working on a live-service game at the same time, a MOBA called Spellcaster Chronicles, which suffered a fate all too common in the genre when the plug was pulled on it back in May. 115 staff who worked on it came in line for the inevitable layoffs.
As reported by French outlet Gamekult, Quantic Dream’s employees say those staff are needed to help with a struggling Star Wars: Eclipse, and laying them off will hurt its chances of ever being finished. They went on strike during a studio visit by LucasFilm to get their point across.
“It’s far from being an act of sabotage. On the contrary, we’re trying to save Star Wars Eclipse,” a developer identified as Jules said, via Google Translate. “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. “
Things are complicated by the fact Quantic Dream is owned by NetEase, having bought the studio in 2022. “We’ve already indicated that we want to talk to NetEase,” said an employee identified as Théo, “but Quantic Dream’s management is preventing us. We’ve explicitly asked for them to be at the negotiating table, since we’re often told: ‘Oh no, that decision depends on NetEase, that’s NetEase’s budget…’ Fine, then bring NetEase in!”
Employees claim that it was NetEase who made the call to end development of Spellcasters Chronicles, while Quantic Dream’s management though it was a good idea to continue throwing time and money down the live-service hole. Which certainly makes it seem like NetEase is the organ grinder and management the monkey.
The initial strike is apparently step one in a series of protests planned to run until some time near September under the umbrella of the “Summer Strike Fest” with the aim of making management aware that Star Wars: Eclipse can’t be completed without the additional staff who were working on Spellcasters Chronicles. “David Cage keeps saying that Star Wars Eclipse is a particularly ambitious project. So let him give us the means to achieve his ambitions,” Theo said.