Spiders release fantasy RPG GreedFall 2 in early access, as its frustrated workers are offered concessions

rockpapershotgun.com:

Look out, it's Spiders. It's fun to write about Spiders, because you get to frighten people for a moment, before they realise you're talking about the game development studio, Spiders. They have just released GreedFall 2: The Dying Land into early access. For those who don't remember the first GreedFall, it was a colonial-styled RPG about landing on the magical shores of another continent and getting into scrapes with monsters and frontiersfolk. This time the story is furthering the fantasy Columbian exchange by putting you in the role of a native who's been uprooted against their will and taken to the "old world". The game's release comes against a backdrop of dissatisfaction in the studio. But workers have gained some concessions in talks.

Spiders say that this release includes the "beginning of the main quest", and note that extensions to that story will be drip fed in future updates. Aside from that the release includes three regions to explore, six companion characters to party up with, and six skill trees to clamber up. Future updates are marked for unspecified times in "autumn" and "winter", and will bring further companions, plus side quests related to those sword-swinging pals, along with new regions and a crafting system.

Behind the scenes, there have been grumbles of dissatisfaction from workers at the studio. At the beginning of the month roughly half the studio signed a letter calling for a strike. This was to address their frustrations at working conditions in the company, including "global mismanagement, turnover and recruitment problems, unacceptable delays in achieving gender equality and parity, important lack of transparency, denial of problems... and blocked negotiations."

The studio management replied that those accusations were false, saying they "in no way reflect the reality of the day-to-day working life of the company's employees and are an attack on the reputation of the studio, whose teams are fully mobilized to produce quality games."