Star Wars Zero Company is the debut game from Bit Reactor, and it’s already the best-reviewed Star Wars game in 22 years. Unfortunately, many of the developers who worked on it were reportedly furloughed in the weeks leading up to its release. “It is sick and weird to have all of these EA and Disney folks as well as Bit Reactor Senior staff making all of these 10/10 posts about Star Wars Zero Company being such a huge success and praising the work of the team while seemingly concealing the fact that the team was furloughed weeks ago,” former Bit Reactor developer Zachariah Scott wrote on LinkedIn.
According to a new report by Game File, as many as 80 percent of Bit Reactor’s staff were furloughed, meaning going without pay but not technically laid off, in the weeks leading up to the new XCOM-like game’s August 27 launch. There is reportedly only a “skeleton crew” left to address any issues and bugs following the release, with a representative of the studio confirming the furloughs to Game File, but not how many people were affected.
The decision was made prior to the game’s exceptional early reviews, which gave it the highest Metacritic score of any Star Wars game at launch since Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – Sith Lords back in 2004. It’s still unclear how many copies the joint venture with Respawn Entertainment, which is published by Electronic Arts, has sold since last week, or how many copies it needs to move in order to continue paying its employees again, let alone give them a bonus for releasing a great game at a time when the odds have never been more stacked against doing so.
The furloughs were also mentioned in a lawsuit that’s currently underway from Bit Reactor’s former chief operating officer, Alison Kelly. She’s accused studio cofounder Greg Foertsch of forcing her out of the company and denying her an equal ownership stake. Foertsch has rejected the claims, with his lawyers arguing Kelly’s role at the company was reduced due to poor work performance. “Plaintiff’s allegations that Foertsch denied her access to books, awarded himself financial benefits, and wrongly terminated her employment are groundless,” reads one of the counter-filings, per Game File.
The dispute is not set to go to trial until 2027. It’s unclear what will be left of Bit Reactor at that point, whether it will get around to paying its furloughed staff, or whether this whole mess will scare EA’s new Saudi Arabia owners from greenlighting a Zero Company sequel.