

The team didn’t want to announce the game in 2020, and management panicked when Microsoft started requesting internal demos. All these problems affected the State of Decay 3 development.On top of that, they accused the studio’s leadership of mismanagement. These allegations aside, current and former employees said that some employees experienced bullying, sexism, and other forms of discrimination.However, she said that her departure was part of a “planned reorganization at the studio.” After Microsoft conducted a review following numerous complaints, Schlosser quietly left Undead Labs.She also noted that she implemented new hiring practices “that increased workforce diversity by more than 30 percent.” Schlosser, however, denied these allegations, telling Kotaku that she would never tolerate that kind of behavior.“It got to the point where nearly every week, someone would sob on a video call with me, because I was the only one who would listen to them,” one current developer said.She also allegedly ignored complaints and offered people excuses instead of actual support. However, some employees said that Schlosser did little to confront discrimination and even sided with toxic and sexist people.Considering her HR experience at companies like Dell and Microsoft, she should have helped bring Undead Labs’ culture to a new level. During that time, Undead Labs hired Anne Schlosser as the studio’s first head of people and culture.According to the report, some of the problems started in 2019, soon after Strain left the studio and ArenaNet head of development Philip Holt became the chief of staff.

Strain responded to Kotaku’s questions in a separate post on Medium, saying that he has been trying to find potential buyers for Undead Labs instead of bragging about independence.Most employees were surprised by Microsoft’s announcement of the Undead Labs acquisition at E3 2018, taking into account founder Jeff Strain’s previous comments about the studio’s desire to stay independent.Although some of them think that the studio is a good place to work at and can be improved, others call the last few years since the acquisition a “period of crisis.” Key takeaways Kotaku reported the internal problems at Undead Labs on March 31, speaking with 12 current and former employees.
