A new report by The Gamer claims that development work at Dying Light studio Techland is marred by poor management and lack of direction.
The writing has been on the wall for quite some time. Not much has been seen or heard of Dying Light 2 since its announcement, and previous reports have claimed that the game’s development is a “total mess” because of internal disagreements and high turnover at Techland. In January, Dying Light 2 writer and art director Pawel Selinger left the studio, fueling speculations yet again that the game was in trouble. The company later reached out to PlayStation LifeStyle to comment on Selinger’s departure, and stated that his duties have been taken over by Piotr Szymanek.
According to The Gamer, multiple developers speaking on condition of anonymity revealed that Techland’s CEO Pawel Marchewka has a toxic style of management. “It’s sh**” and “too f**got-like” are two examples of the kind of feedback he reportedly gives his developers on their hard work. It’s no surprise, then, that at least 20 developers have reportedly left Techland over the last couple of months alone. That amounts to five percent of its workforce.
“Techland has a history of hiring people for which the team had ‘high hopes’, but it ended up in nothing,” said one of The Gamer’s sources. “One such case for the designers was the hiring of Marc Albinet, a former game director from Ubisoft, that was supposed to restructure how design is done in the studio. Even he, a veteran with 30 years of experience, couldn’t break through upper management that is harder to change than the spin of the f*****g Earth.”
The Gamer’s detailed and comprehensive report is worth reading. As expected, Marchewka denied a lot of the claims made against him and offered explanations for others.
“Techland takes the welfare of our staff seriously and we are always evaluating ways that we can learn and improve – that is the key to long-term success,” he told The Gamer. “We expect all our employees to set a good example and treat others the way they would expect to be treated themselves. To support that, we are starting a series of different training sessions [this year], including with specialists from outside our organization.”
[Source: The Gamer]
