In recent times, we’ve been hearing a LOT of stories about video game developers as a whole doing not so nice things to their employees. EA, Blizzard, and more have been on that list for a variety of reasons. But now, an unexpected team has popped up on that list in a curious way. MercurySteam, the team behind the popular Metroid Dread game that released last week, has been cited for not putting all of their development team in the game’s credits.
According to the Studio, teammates who go and work on less than 25% of the game aren’t included in the game’s credits. To give you a number here, it’s said that Metroid Dread took about 4 years to make, thus you had to work on the game for about a year to get into the credits. And that’s where things get…tricky.
3D artist Roberto Mejías wrote on his LinkedIn page:
“I would like to sincerely congratulate the Metroid Dread team for putting out such an exceptional game. I am not surprised by the quality of the game, as the amount of talent on that team was through the roof. I know it first hand because, despite not appearing in the game’s credits, I was part of that team for about eight months.”
There was another employee who came forward and said that they worked there even longer at 11 months and yet because they didn’t meet “the limit” they weren’t included in the credits either:
“Not accrediting the work of the team that puts all the love in the project, and the effort, is a very ugly practice.”
It’s true that every studio can have their own practice as to how they handle things like credits, but given that these people spent months on the game and their work can literally be seen or felt in Metroid Dread, it feels very odd that MercurySteam would do this.
