Star Wars Zero Company is out and it rules, which should mean Bit Reactor, the team responsible for making the game, are currently basking in the warm afterglow of a great success. Instead, this being the hellscape timeline we currently inhabit, most of the studio have been furloughed and aren't being paid.
As Stephen Totilo reports at Game File, most of Bit Reactor's staff were stood down two weeks before the game’s launch, with one source saying the furlough has affected 80% of the team. And while one look at the publisher (EA) and license (Disney) for Zero Company would have most already assuming the culprits, a Bit Reactor rep told Totilo Bit Reactor made the decision on its own.
The report paints a picture of a studio in crisis; Bit Reactor had "run out of most of its money just ahead of the launch of [Zero Company]", while it had also been embroiled in a long-running legal dispute between two founders over who, exactly, owned the company.
While Bit Reactor are reportedly "[hoping] to bring furloughed workers back" after the game's success, that's far from a guarantee, and so regardless of the cause and particulars, we're still left with the same result as so many other layoffs and closures from the 2020s: a team of workers spent years making a video game people love, only to find themselves out of work right when they should be enjoying the fruits of their labour.
