The studio that gave us Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human is in serious trouble, and the fallout from one catastrophic misstep could take down one of gaming’s most anticipated projects with it.
Quantic Dream spent eight years building Spellcasters Chronicles, a free-to-play 3v3 MOBA that was supposed to open a new chapter for the studio. It launched in February 2026. By May 20, it was dead, shut down after peaking at just 888 concurrent players. Three months of life for eight years of work.
Now the studio is dealing with the consequences, and they are severe.
Quantic Dream Plans to Lay Off the Entire Spellcasters Chronicles Team
Management is reportedly planning to cut all 115 employees who worked on the failed project, a move that would eliminate a quarter of the studio’s entire workforce. The announcement triggered a strike outside Quantic Dream’s Paris headquarters on June 25, called by the STJV union, as employees pushed back hard against the decision.
The reason the stakes feel so high is Star Wars Eclipse. The narrative action game announced at The Game Awards in 2021 has been in troubled development for years. Workers argue that the 115 employees being cut are exactly the people the project needs to have any hope of reaching completion. Developer Jules said it plainly: “We could manage to release it with 115 people on board. That wouldn’t mean we were overstaffed. It’s what’s needed.”
The timing of the strike was deliberate. A Lucasfilm delegation was scheduled to visit the studio that same day to review progress on Star Wars Eclipse, and employees used the moment to raise the alarm publicly. Developers described the project as severely understaffed, with leadership promoting a crunch culture while failing to provide teams with the direction or resources to make meaningful progress.
Publisher NetEase, which acquired Quantic Dream in 2022, has also come under scrutiny. Employees claim management frequently attributes key decisions to the Chinese publisher while insisting the studio retains creative independence, creating confusion and frustration at every level.
Whether Star Wars Eclipse survives this depends entirely on what happens next. No updated timeline has been confirmed.
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