Interviews with multiple former senior developers cited a
lack of creative autonomy and slow development progress as the reason for their departures, and described the wave of exits as “fast and furious” with project momentum said to be “heavily affected”.
The former Initiative developers VGC spoke to attributed the wave of departures to
frustration among senior talent over the direction of the project set down by Gallagher and game director Daniel Neuburger (who himself left the company last month).
Although
The Initiative’s website claims that the company promotes a “collaborative” creative environment, former employees described the studio’s
development hierarchy as very ‘top-down’, with Gallagher and Neuburger keeping a strong grasp on creative decisions.
According to the former employees, many senior team members were frustrated by this perceived lack of autonomy and didn’t feel heard on key issues such as development priorities, project planning and team staffing.
Gallagher and Neuburger, who were previously studio head and game director at Crystal Dynamics, wanted to make games the way they always had with top-down direction, the sources said, while many Initiative employees were expecting a more bottom-up approach.
As a result, it’s claimed that development has progressed “painfully” slow and a solid company culture never formed. All former employees VGC spoke to said they were surprised at how lenient
Microsoft had been over the lack of progress.
VGC’s sources agreed that they would be surprised if
Crystal Dynamics’ introduction, combined with the
significant departures of core staff, hadn’t triggered an effective soft reboot of Perfect Dark and that it was likely still
years away from release.
