Star Wars Zero Company developer Bit Reactor furloughed most of its employees weeks before the game launched on August 27, according to a report from Game File.
A representative for Bit Reactor has confirmed employees were furloughed and it was a difficult decision that was made before it was known how the launch would go. The call was made by the studio and not by publisher Electronic Arts or the Star Wars license holder Disney.
A filing in a lawsuit by studio co-founder Alison Kelly in 2024 was added on August 12 of this year that states the studio had “furloughed most of its employees and terminated contractors.”
One source claims 80 percent of staff were impacted by the furlough, while another source says only a skeleton crew is left on the active payroll in order to address post-launch bugs.
Senior technical artist Zachariah Scott left in May of this claims the studio was “concealing the fact that the team was Furloughed weeks ago.”
He spoke with nearly a dozen employees over the weekend and said “everybody has essentially the same story, which is, ‘Yeah, I got furloughed three weeks ago.'”
Bit Reactor, which was founded in 2021, had run out of money just ahead of launch.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
Full Article – https://www.vgchartz.com/article/468903/star-wars-zero-company-dev-bit-reactor-employees-furloughed-ahead-of-launch/
