HomeNewsTotal War: Rome II
Rome 2 programmer says “leaders seemed to resent critical feedback and treated it as unwelcome"
Image credit:Creative Assembly
Image credit:Creative Assembly
He also alleges that the design and programming teams were at odds as regards certain features, and that upper management frequently sided with designers. “The way it looked from my point of view was that production leadership let designers do whatever they wanted, and it’s one of the main reasons that Rome II went so badly wrong,” writes McKinlay. “Designers instructed us not to improve [the AI] in certain ways, because they believed that players enjoyed being able to dominate the AI and that we shouldn’t deprive them of that.”
Rally Point – Episode 14: Battlefield AI SpecialWatch on YouTube
Rally Point – Episode 14: Battlefield AI Special
In terms of the aforementioned Rally Point video, McKinlay was subject to ridicule and harassment after it aired. He says this culminated in death threats, although he adds that he felt he “did not have actual reason to fear for my safety.” While he says that he doesn’t believe Creative Assembly intentionally stoked these fires, he believes that “this narrative was actually quite convenient for Creative Assembly, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I became a scapegoat for the project’s failures.”
Towards the end of the piece, which is far more detailed and gets much further into the weeds of actual game design than is practical to summarise here, McKinlay poses the following question:
It’s worth reiterating that this is one developers’s perspective on an entire studio, and one that hasn’t worked there for ten years, even if the recentHyenas sagacould suggest that some of the issues McKinlay raises are still ongoing. McKinlay is also not entirely negative about his time there, mentioning friends at the studio still.
One other former employee at CA has boosted McKinlay’s account. Will Overgard, CA’s community coordinator from 2012 to 2015, hasshared the post on Xitter. “I still feel guilty for what happened to Julian, so give his statement a read for me,” writes Overgard. “I’m incredibly proud of what I contributed to CA…but I had a hand in destroying someone’s career and that awful feeling never went away.”
We’ve reached out to Creative Assembly for comment.
