Yesterday afternoon a forum post was publicized on various spanish gaming websites, the post was of one supposed developer at Mercury Steam, he told of a large series of problems during the development of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. I spoke today with sources that have formed part of the development of the game. Vadajueges is in the position to confirm the story and to clear up some details.
We can confirm that the development of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 was very problematic for leadership problems and communication within the company. "The development problems were basically what was said in the forum post. [In Mercury Steam] talent is bountiful; the problem is that it isn't where it should be, which is in the leads [team leaders]", our source assured us. "There are a few leads that have been here a while...will actually end up doing [the work], but most preoccupy themselves brown nosing Enric [Alvarez, the CEO of Mercury Steam]".
Our sources can confirm that all the decisions during the games development went right through Alvarez. "It is complicated to be creative there, because all the ideas that people have never make it out the door. It is definitely not looked upon favorable to give your own input or ideas." This situation has made a good number of employees at Mercury Steam to leave the company: "there have been some great staff that have left. The art director [Rafael Jimenez], left for Tequila, because of these problems. They had him completely locked down, and he couldn't do anything, to which [Jimenez] said: Then you can stay with your ideas"...
These conflicts happening with key staff members have been, in the opinion of the team at Mercury Steam, the cause of a few of the problems that they game has. "[Jimenez] is the one who did all of the art for the first Lords of Shadow, which was really cool, and this follow up is a Frankenstein because there has not been an art lead at all. One would arrive, then another, then there would be a minor power struggle...some phases were nice, others not at all. This Castlevania has come out a bit weird because of that: each one threw their own 2 cents into it. Each department did its own thing, no one spoke to anyone.
The lack of communications was another of the elements that were the root of many of the problems. "They treat people as...untrustworthy. It is a really weird environment, it isn't conducive to creativity at all. They don't trust in people.", Asking about the example of the phases of infiltration, our source assured us: "we would said: What the hell is this? Are we actually going to release the game with this in this state? All of these bad things pointed at now are things we talked about internally and we would actually say, we are we turning into a rat?" As told to us by our source, this negative environment has been around for at least two years, but they also mention that it wasn't always like this.
The lack of communication that we have commented on is derived from the fact that there were "no meetings" and that things were found out through "the press". That is why, out of everything that has been mentioned since yesterday there are two elements that must be questioned according to our sources: First, the supposed poor reaction from Konami at the root of the game. "That could not be known" they tell us. "I don't know if they're good or bad". Regardless, the rumors reassured that the delays had caused Mercury Stream to pay out of pocket to finish development; our sources assure us that the delays were not significantly larger from those of any other AAA game development, and that nothing similar was ever communicated to the team.
We will continue considering that Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is a good game, as it can be seen in the critiques that Jose Carlos Castillo brought up in Vadejuegos. In Merucry Steam there is a lot of talent, regardless of the problems, and we expect to see more games in the future of the studio. We have written to Enric Alvarez to see his version of the story, we will post that information if it is necessary.
