MercurySteam responds to complaints some Metroid Dread devs were left out of credits • Eurogamer.net

Metroid Dread was a critical and commercial success, exceeding all expectations for the return of the long-dormant Nintendo franchise, but some of those involved in its creation have started to express their disappointment at not being credited for their work – a criticism developer MercurySteam now has addressed.

As reported by Spanish site Vandal, several former MercurySteam employees recently took to the internet to request that their names be omitted from the credits of Metroid Dread, despite their involvement in the production of the title. “I would like to sincerely congratulate the Metroid Dread team for releasing such an exceptional game,” wrote 3D artist Roberto Mejías. on Linkedin. “I’m not surprised at the quality of the game though, as the amount of talent in this team was at its peak. I know this firsthand because, although I am not included in the credits of the game, I have was on this team for eight months. “

“While playing the game,” Mejías continued, “I recognized quite a few assets and environments that I worked on… so my work is there. Next, I would like to ask MercurySteam: why is n am I not appearing on the game credits? Is this an error? “.

We played Metroid Dread and it’s really terrifying.

3D cinema host Tania Peñaranda also took on LinkedIn with similar concerns, writing: “I am very happy and proud to finally be able to see my work on the project, a job that I did with a lot of love and enthusiasm! I am also very proud of all the team !”.

“But it also saddens me to see that I am not reflected in the credits for this work that I have done,” Peñaranda continued. “It was difficult for me to see that they considered it should be like this when I continue to see a lot of the animation that I have done in each game. Regardless, I will continue to feel very proud of my work. and very happy to see how people enjoy the game and the creatures I had the pleasure of bringing to life. “

A third former employee, speaking to Vandal on condition of anonymity, noted that they were also not credited in the final version of Metroid Dread, despite working on the project for 11 months. “Not accrediting the work of the team that puts all the love in the project, and the effort,” they added, “is a very ugly practice”.

In a statement provided to Vandal, a spokesperson for MercurySteam explained that official company policy requires developers to remain in the studio for 25% or more of a project’s development time in order to appear in its credits. . “Of course,” he added, “exceptions are sometimes made for exceptional contributions.”

As reprehensible as it may be to refuse to credit employees based on an arbitrary set of conditions, MercurySteam is far from the only studio with questionable rules regarding credit. A recent report from Kotaku, for example, revealed that a number of developers who worked on Bethesda and Deathloop from Arkane Studios were either relegated to the “special thanks” section of the game or omitted from the credits. Even more blatantly, “over a thousand” employees were excluded from Red Dead Redemption 2 credits.

Rockstar has, of course, been criticized for its credit practices on several occasions over the years – during 100 LA Noire team members not credited for their work in 2011, for example, while 55 employees did not do the Manhunt credits in 2007 – and the company admitted in 2018 that its official policy was to only credit developers who were still employed by the studio when a game was released, no matter how long they had worked on a title.

“It’s been a consistent policy because we’ve always believed we wanted the team to reach the finish line,” Rockstar’s Jennifer Kolbe told Kotaku. “And a long long time ago, we decided that if you didn’t actually finish the game, you wouldn’t be in the credits.”

As VGC rated In a report released earlier this year, part of the problem is that, unlike the heavily unionized film and television industries, there is no real regulation of credit in the games industry, at the -of the unenforceable directives written by the International Game Developers Association. And while this remains the case, developers like those at MercurySteam will continue to be at the mercy of the whims of their employers.