Overview
- Spanish outlet 3DJuegos interviewed roughly ten current and former staff who say a January DIJ policy and a May shift to 10-hour days normalized sustained crunch conveyed verbally rather than in writing.
- Sources report HR later acknowledged the extra hours were not mandatory, yet implementation varied by team and overtime practices were described as irregular and undocumented.
- Several employees allege intimidation and punitive actions for pushing back or taking leave, including firings, revoked system access, and legal threats after posting about their experiences.
- Pressure reportedly increased after Blades of Fire was labeled an underperformer by its publisher, with August layoffs reported and additional measures such as canceled vacations and a ban on remote work.
- Internal communication was restricted with non-work chats closed and office partitions installed, union CSVI publicly backed the allegations as another worker group disputed them, and outlets report the studio continues crunch on an unannounced project with no company comment so far.