Aeon Must Die, the beat ‘em up revealed during last year’s State Of Play conference, has appeared online again after the publisher reposted the title’s launch trailer.
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After the game’s reveal last year, accusations of workplace abuse and intellectual property theft appeared online from ex-developers. Publisher Focus Home Interactive stated its intentions to look into the allegations against Limestone Games, but all progress regarding the game has been quiet since then.
Our statement regarding Limestone Games and Aeon Must Die!. pic.twitter.com/75ldhtp27T
— Focus Home Interactive (@FocusHome) August 7, 2020
Focus Home Interactive released a statement at the time, stating: “We pride ourselves on treating our own employees and third party developers fair and respectfully and this will not change.” Focus Home Interactive, which recently acquired Dotemu, has not provided any further information on its investigation or the outcome.
Allegations from past developers included “unbearable work conditions, endless crunch, harassment, abuse, corruption and manipulation.” An expansive collection of materials gathered in a Dropbox folder included evidence that Limestone Games covertly stole the game from the original founder, and that many staff members were not paid for their work.
Focus Home Interactive’s republishing of the trailer without providing any further updates on the investigation implies the publisher is hoping enough time has passed for people to forget about the allegations. Limestone Games, the developer behind Aeon Must Die, has been radio silent since the allegations. Someone at the company created an empty blog at the start of July this year with a piece of artwork, but nothing was written within it.
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