Rocksteady Studios will quickly lose its co-founders and studio heads, Jamie Walker and Sefton Hill. In an announcement from WB Games president David Haddad, each males are leaving the corporate in 2023. 

“We are very proud to have labored alongside Jamie and Sefton, who’ve led their gifted groups to create a few of the finest video games on this planet,” wrote Haddad. “With Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League practically completed, they’ve each determined to depart Rocksteady on the finish of 2022 and can start a brand new journey in gaming.”

Based in London and based in 2004, Rocksteady got here into fame with the Batman: Arkham franchise. Hill served because the artistic director of Suicide Squad and every mainline Arkham sport, together with the Batman: Arkham VR spinoff. 

“From the day we based the corporate in 2004 all the best way to as we speak, Rocksteady has been our life and soul,” wrote Walker and Hill in a joint assertion. “We are so pleased with the group right here for the video games we’ve all made collectively, from our first sport Urban Chaos, to the much-loved Arkham collection, and now the epic Suicide Squad.”

Taking over as studio director can be Nathan Burlow, beforehand Rocksteady’s manufacturing member and one among its first workers. Darius Sadeghian, who joined the developer in 2015, will function studio product director.

What does Rocksteady’s departures imply for its studio tradition?

During Walker and Hill’s time at Rocksteady, allegations of misconduct have been leveled in opposition to the developer. 

The allegations (initially from 2018, however revealed in 2020) noticed 10 of the employees’s 16 complete ladies ladies wrote a letter accusing administration of failing to take critically complaints of transphobia and numerous varieties of sexual harassment from male coworkers. Several of the ladies who wrote that letter have since left the developer. 

At the time, Rocksteady responded by stating it investigated the complaints from ladies employees and “addressed appropriately.” 

“We are devoted to listening and enhancing, and have employed specialists to assist additional improve fairness and illustration at Rocksteady,” wrote Rocksteady in 2020.

But one of many ladies behind the unique allegations, senior author Kim MacAskill, argued that the tradition on the studio has remained the identical since she left.

Earlier this yr, MacAskill turned down a lifetime achievement award from Women in Games, which had Rocksteady and WB Games as its sponsors. She additional alleged that following an investigation from Rocksteady, she was provided cash and to place her title again within the credit of Suicide Squad, each of which she turned down. 

“To Warner and Rocksteady: Stop enabling unhealthy conduct,” she wrote on Twitter. “You can throw your title on each range occasion going however until you’re taking accountability it means nothing and I see you.”

“To take an award linked to them can be an unstated acceptance of what they did.”

Warner Bros. Games then launched an announcement in response to the prior sexual harassment allegations, stating “investigations discovered there was no proof substantiating the allegations of this former worker who resigned in 2019. […] A Warner Bros. Discovery (then Warner Media) People Relations group, impartial of the video games division, diligently researched and investigated any allegations raised.”

“These two separate investigations each confidently arrived on the identical conclusion, that every one points raised with HR and the administration of Rocksteady Studios have been dealt with appropriately and sensitively.”

Unfortunately, I’m bowing out from the lifetime achievement nomination for @wigj (ladies in video games). I do not want sympathy or hatred however merely understanding. I’m so sorry to those who voted.. @warnerbros – take accountability. @RocksteadyGames , you possibly can’t sweep errors. pic.twitter.com/XIYoruQ0uZ

— Kim MacAskill (@kimmacaskill1) September 18, 2022