Last week on the Game Awards, host Geoff Keighley launched the primary of many recreation reveals of the night time. “I hope you’re ready,” the host teased, earlier than revealing a cinematic trailer for Star Wars Eclipse, a brand new motion recreation set within the franchise’s latest The High Republic publishing initiative. What Keighley and maybe many Star Wars followers themselves weren’t anticipating was the response to who was making it.

“I was thrilled to see footage of a game that felt reminiscent of so many great, classic Star Wars games,” Chase, a queer Star Wars fan who creates LGBTQ-themed content material concerning the Skywalker Saga on-line beneath the deal with ThatGayJedi, instructed io9 over electronic mail about their response to seeing Eclipse’s reveal dwell this previous Thursday. “It was easy to get caught up in the epic shots, music, and fresh storyline! I was stoked.”

Little is at present recognized about Eclipse. The trailer—considered over eight million times already on the official Star Wars YouTube channel—is solely cinematic, with no gameplay or story particulars. There are cryptic photographs of Jedi training with lightsabers, Neimoidians and Trade Federation starships, glimpses of Yoda, alien drummers, unusual planets, and a mysterious, ooze-covered determine. But what is understood, and got here as the largest shock of the trailer, was the way it ended: affirmation that the sport is being developed by French studio Quantic Dream. Founded by David Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière in 1997, the Paris-based studio is greatest recognized for its technology-pushing, choice-driven, narrative-heavy online game fashion, together with video games like Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain, and newer titles just like the Eliot-Page-starring Beyond: Two Souls and the clunky sci-fi social justice allegory Detroit: Become Human.

But in newer years the studio has been embroiled in controversies past the standard of its video games and the tales they need to inform. In 2018, a joint investigation by French press retailers Le Monde, Canard PC, and Mediapart reported wide-ranging claims of a poisonous office tradition on the studio, together with accusations of a tradition of crunch (the apply of intense additional time work by workers within the run-up to launch of a title), the violation of French labor legal guidelines by the studio’s HR division, and extra. But the reviews additionally levelled a sequence of disturbing allegations about founders Cage and de Fondaumière, claiming that the builders perpetuated a provocative and bigoted tradition of harassment at Quantic Dream.

At the time, Quantic Dream denied the allegations discovered within the reviews, after which every week later took two of these retailers, Le Monde and Mediapart, to courtroom, suing them for libel. The case was ongoing for plenty of years, wrapping up just a few months in the past in a mix of success and failure for each Quantic Dream and the journalists it focused. The French courts sided in favour of Quantic Dream in its libel case towards Le Monde in September 2021 over the joint investigation with Canard PC and Mediapart, but it surely concurrently sided towards the studio in its case towards Mediapart—the courts citing that Mediapart had efficiently proved its practices in reporting the investigation—failing to refute the broader reporting about Quantic Dream’s misconduct.

“I actually learned about Quantic Dream’s reputation and a little bit about the accusations against them after watching the trailer,” Chase mentioned of the studio’s involvement in Star Wars. “First, I learned about them just bit by bit through some semi-critical tweets and then, later, I learned a whole lot more through my own research on David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumière, and Quantic Dream as a company.”

It wasn’t simply allegations of Quantic Dream internet hosting a poisonous office atmosphere that irked Star Wars followers, although. As has been made clear in recent times and thru necessary investigative reporting, the online game trade on a considerable scale has lengthy had points with perpetuating cultures that fostered sexist, homophobic, and bigoted attitudes, and studios have lengthy wrestled with the nature of labor issues equivalent to union group and crunch—on this regard, the allegations towards Quantic Dream will not be an exception to the broader trade. The flashpoint for shock on the considered the studio getting its palms on the galaxy far, far-off, nonetheless, as a substitute centered on alleged feedback by David Cage particularly that had been raised in the course of the courtroom case earlier this 12 months. While showing earlier than the courtroom in June 2021, Cage reportedly stormed out of the courtroom in tears after being made to listen to a lawyer learn out a listing of alleged statements he had made to Quantic Dream workers.

“Anyway, in my games, all women are wh***s,” was one such purported assertion learn out in the course of the trial, in line with the unbiased French union Solidaires Informatique. Others purportedly included “In the open space, there is a lack of tits,” and “At Quantic Dream, we don’t make games for f**s.” Quantic Dream and its founders denied the allegations discovered within the reviews in 2018, earlier than bringing Mediapart and Le Monde to courtroom in the identical 12 months. Separately, a person worker took Quantic Dream to courtroom in July 2018, suing the studio for damages citing that an alleged poisonous work atmosphere–together with accusations of derogatory edited photos being shared by workers of them–had result in an unfair dismissal. Although the case was initially determined in the employee’s favor, in April 2021 the French Court of Appeals overturned the case, asking the worker to pay compensation to Quantic Dream totalling €10,138 (roughly $11,450).

Cage’s direct stage of involvement with Star Wars Eclipse is unknown, exterior of the Writer/Director sharing its trailer on social media with the message that he was “happy to reveal” Eclipse to the world, and that “having the chance to contribute to this amazing franchise is a dream come true.” We’ve reached out to Quantic Dream to make clear Cage’s relationship with the sport, and for additional commentary on their authorized instances this 12 months, however didn’t hear again by time of publication. But with or with out his involvement, for some Star Wars followers, Quantic Dream being Lucasfilm Games’ newest companion in increasing its manufacturing on video games set within the galaxy far, far-off was much less of a dream and extra of a nightmare due to these allegations—particularly for queer followers like Chase.

“It has been a weird roller coaster of processing to go on as a queer fan… my immediate thoughts about Quantic Dream developing Eclipse—before I understood the scope of the allegations against them—were more along the lines of, ‘Eh, whatever. People are hateful but the game will still be made and people will still buy it,’” they continued. “And, to be clear, I’m not proud of that initial response I had–but I feel it’s important to share that initial response honestly and openly because, to me, it shows just how normalized homophobia, sexism, and racism [in fandom spaces] have become. And not only normalized, but lauded and rewarded. We have been conditioned to reward this kind of behavior by giving people [who engage in it] platforms, contracts, and our own, personal, money.”

“I’m extra frustrated and heart broken that this game is set during the High Republic time period. The game developers’ work culture seems to go against everything that Lucasfilm has worked so hard at building in this time period,” Bryan, a number on the queer-focused Star Wars podcast Pink Milk alongside Chase, instructed io9 individually over electronic mail. Not solely has Bryan been upset in Lucasfilm’s partnership with Quantic Dreams, however in some Star Wars followers excited by Eclipse reacting with hostility to himself and different queer folks upset by the title’s builders, after Pink Milk spoke out against the studio. “The idea that we’re asking for a social agenda just makes me very upset. I’ve been out for 24 years and I’m just growing tired of this conversation,” Bryan continued. “We’re not asking for a social agenda, we’re asking to sit in the front seat with everyone else. I’ve found myself this past few days wanting people who are on the other side of the table from me to express to me why they think they’re better than me and why they feel that I don’t belong [in the Star Wars fandom].”

io9 acquired emails from a number of followers wishing to stay nameless that expressed comparable ideas to ones Bryan was involved about—that drama surrounding the announcement was overblown, that issues had been both followers pushing a left-leaning “cancel culture” agenda or just looking for one thing, something to complain about with Star Wars. But in lots of different responses from followers, Chase and Bryan’s reactions to Eclipse are removed from remoted. “I’ve been so happy with the new High Republic content Star Wars has been putting out because we finally have gotten away from the Skywalker saga and we are getting more insight into what the Republic was like during its Golden Age. So I was so excited to see the Eclipse trailer. It has drama, looks beautiful and seems really intriguing. But when I saw it was Quantic Dream, I was upset,” one fan instructed io9 over electronic mail. “I feel like Lucasfilm has been getting into these traps where they release something that looks really incredible, but there’s some very big, glaring issue that they definitely know about, but they go along with anyway. In this case, partnering with Quantic Dream.”

“I grew up as a gay man during the height of the AIDS crisis. I have recently been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum which explains so much of my childhood. It was very hard for me to navigate a world queer on the spectrum (undiagnosed) when I had no one to help me. Creative outlets like D&D and Star Wars were my solace,” one other, BJ, shared. “However, when these nerdy sources of comfort encountered others all the neurotypical cis white bro culture and virulent homophobia were there. On the internet these metastasized. The trailer for Eclipse is exciting. I am very keen to play it, but yet, here we are. I cannot stop thinking about this game and my ambivalence [towards its developer].”

Over the weekend some Twitter customers within the Star Wars fandom rallied across the hashtag #BlackoutStarWarsEclipse—which sprouted out of conversations Chase and Bryan had discussing Eclipse on the Pink Milk podcast final week.

“The way the hashtag has started taking off has been one of the most healing aspects of this entire situation,” Chase added. “Outside of the occasional and unthinking hate I receive online because of this push, it’s actually been an incredibly moving thing to see how the hashtag has grown and gained momentum. The allyship is strong with this hashtag, and I couldn’t be more grateful. And its allyship on so, so many fronts.”

The hashtag focuses on the critique of allegations from Quantic Dream’s lawsuits which have emerged up to now three years. But it additionally serves as an area for followers to share their dismay at not simply Quantic Dream dealing with a Star Wars recreation, however a High Republic recreation particularly. The still-nascent publishing initiative—launched in early 2021 as a sequence of interconnected novels and comedian e book sequence exploring a previously-untold interval of Star Wars historical past, roughly 200 years earlier than the occasions of the Star Wars motion pictures—has turn out to be an area that pushed ahead Star Wars’ rocky historical past with queer illustration. In the final 12 months of the initiative’s storytelling alone, queer folks of a number of gender and sexual identities have been necessary characters within the tales instructed in High Republic’s world at a price not like something beforehand seen in Lucasfilm’s earlier makes an attempt, or lack thereof, to include queer characters and storytelling into the Star Wars universe. For followers like Chase and others, the truth that Eclipse is ready in a queer-friendly Star Wars setting like The High Republic makes Quantic Dream’s involvement all of the extra hurtful.

“The High Republic is genuinely the most diverse part of Star Wars canon. There are well written people of color, women, queer people and so much more and we’ve not had representation on this scale on Star Wars to date,” one other fan, Lou, instructed io9 over electronic mail. “The key authors behind The High Republic have all worked incredibly hard to make this representation work in an otherwise frankly quite toxic fandom, and having Quantic Dream is a slap in the face to the writers and all the fans who are BIPOC, queer, or women. Quite honestly, we already get very little representation [as queer people], and seeing something that is finally for us be handed to this kind of company is just sad. I won’t be buying the game even though High Republic is my favorite era of Star Wars.”

“Star Wars has always been an uplifting, liberal and inclusive franchise… in theory. More often than not, however, it shies away from ‘pulling the trigger’ on giving loud voices to PoCs, and queer people in their live action developments,” Gustavo Acosta, a number on the Puerto Rican fan podcast Triad of the Force, added. “This is why The High Republic has been such a big deal for a lot of us. It has been a welcome change in Star Wars in the sense that it puts all groups in the forefront of representation. It’s an inclusive era, but more than that it’s an inclusive community [of fans] that has been thrilled and passionate about The High Republic… it’s very exhausting to see the same thing happen with Star Wars over and over again: Lucasfilm afraid of real substantive change, and catering to toxic corners of the fandom that want minority and queer voices gagged and unrepresented.”

For now, Quantic Dream, Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm Games have remained silent about response to Eclipse’s announcement. A request made by io9 to Lucasfilm concerning the response to Eclipse’s announcement final week has to this point remained unanswered (we’ll replace this report if we hear again). But in a interval of transition for the Star Wars franchise at massive—because it pivots away from a combined reception to the tip of the Skywalker saga in 2019 to nostalgia-driven fan-focused initiatives on Disney+ like this month’s The Book of Boba Fett and subsequent 12 months’s Obi-Wan Kenobi—the corporate’s silence on problems with illustration to queer followers, and which collaborators it shares the Star Wars universe with, is made extra deafening by the day.

“The story told in the Eclipse trailer seems to be an exciting one–any story building upon what the authors of the High Republic novels have built sounds thrilling to me. I would love for that story to be passed on to a new developer, if possible–and not just any developer, but a developer that can continue a legacy of Queer representation in Star Wars video games (and video games in general),” Chase concluded.

“At the bare minimum, though, I want to be heard and validated by Lucasfilm. I want Lucasfilm to acknowledge and apologize for the hurt they have caused and for them to show us some empathy and understanding of what has been an archaic and egregious decision.”

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