Star Wars Eclipse was announced during The Game Awards 2021, showing off a cinematic trailer for a game set in the new High Republic era. Unfortunately, the development studio handling Star Wars Eclipse isn’t exactly what fans wanted. Quantic Dream, which most recently released Detroit: Become Human, isn’t perfect for the new Star Wars game, and the franchise deserves better.
Quantic Dream is a French development studio that was founded in 1997. So far, the studio has released five games, but it’s gained the most attention for Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit Become Human. Primarily known for its approach to storytelling, most of Quantic Dream’s games aren’t too gameplay intensive, focusing on player choices and the game’s overall narrative. However, this isn’t necessarily the problem with Quantic Dream creating Star Wars Eclipse.
Even if the gameplay is more of an in-depth walking simulator than an action-adventure Star Wars game like Jedi: Fallen Order, the contents of Star Wars Eclipse isn’t really what has fans up in arms online. Instead, it’s the political connotations, or lack thereof, of Quantic Dream’s games in the past, as well as all the disturbing allegations facing David Cage, founder and lead creative force of the studio. Especially with Geoff Keighley’s lackluster denouncement of abuse and harassment in the games industry at the beginning of the show, Quantic Dream’s reveal during The Game Awards 2021 makes it clear that Star Wars and its fans deserve better than a studio with many allegations against its founder and CEO.
Star Wars Deserves Better Than Quantic Dream
In 2018, Quantic Dream was accused of a toxic work environment in three different French publications, according to an article from The Guardian shortly after the news hit the United States. The three French news reports claimed that Quantic Dream employees frequently experience inappropriate language and behavior, as well as forced hours of development crunch, an issue that has been plaguing the industry at large for decades. However, both Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière, the co-CEO of Quantic Dream, denied the allegations and sued two of the three news publications for libel in a case that wasn’t resolved until earlier this year.
The allegations against Quantic Dream management became public after numerous staff members filed a complaint regarding racist, sexist and homophobic Photoshopped images of employees, including some that depicted developers in Nazi uniforms. Cage and de Fondaumière said they were unaware of the images and that they were deleted from the company’s servers as soon as they received the report. Whether the two CEOs knew about the pictures, though, doesn’t make the existence of those alleged photos OK - either the two knew but didn’t feel it was an issue or they somehow didn’t know that others were creating the images and circulating them around the office, which really isn't any better, and calls into question their effectiveness as leaders of the studio.
Unfortunately, neither that or Star Wars Eclipse is the end of the story. The studio was also accused of perpetuating crunch with long working hours, another claim that the two CEOs denied, saying that it was not a common occurrence and that all employees who worked more than 35 hours a week (considered a full work week by the French government) were compensated with overtime pay. Additionally, in a wrongful dismissal complaint, one former employee claimed that Cage and de Fondaumière made racist and homophobic jokes. Both denied those allegations as well, and the Detroit: Become Human developer filed a libel lawsuit against the publications that broke the news story in 2018.
For all these reasons, it’s incredibly disheartening to have Star Wars Eclipse handed over to Quantic Dream. Of course, most of the employees working on the game are regular developers who likely have nothing to do with the alleged behavior from the company’s CEOs. Even with that important caveat, though, it’s not a great message to send to Star Wars fans or the games industry at all.
Star Wars Eclipse's Gameplay Won't Be The Problem For Quantic Dream
Star Wars is obviously an enormous, beloved franchise, and its audience is full of diverse fans. Many of these are the people most excited about Star Wars Eclipse. Although Quantic Dream games don’t have the explicit disparaging language used against women and people in the LGBTQ+ community that the studio’s management is accused of using, its games, especially Detroit: Become Human, have been criticized for their approach to political issues and discrimination. Detroit: Become Human, for example, received criticism when it was first revealed for containing domestic abuse in one of its trailers. How is a fan who belongs to one of the groups that Cage and de Fondaumière have allegedly made crude jokes about supposed to feel completely comfortable playing a Star Wars game from their company?
Having a Star Wars game created by Quantic Dream potentially sends the message that the prestige of a studio or the supposed creative direction of the team is more important than the very real toxic work environment experienced by developers as well, which is not a great look with the current state of the industry. With workers walking out in protest of Activision-Blizzard, the accusations against Ubisoft and Riot Games, and the recent revelations about Bungie’s history, it’s not in good taste to keep handing enormous opportunities to studios with such allegedly poor management. It’s hard to see so many similar stories coming out all the time while also seeing these studios still being handed big games on a silver platter.
Quantic Dream may well be able to make a decent game out of Star Wars Eclipse, but the problems go much farther than potential gameplay or story content. Instead, the studio’s alleged abuse of employees in a consistently toxic work environment raises greater concerns for the fate of a game that has many fans otherwise excited. Both the games industry and Star Wars fans deserve better than the whirlwind of allegations surrounding David Cage and his company right now, and Star Wars as a franchise deserves better than the field of doubt that will inevitably come with these persistent allegations.